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Comj)lim'(''nts of 



ADDRESSES AND LITERARY CONTRIBUTIONS 

ON THE THRESHOLD OF 

EIGHTY-TWO 



Addresses AND 
Literary Contributions 

ON THE threshold OF 
EIGHTY-TWO 



BY 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 






vo 



^ ^'i'^' 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

"Keep A-Goin'." Poem by Frank L. Stanton 9 

At the Twenty-third Annual Dinner given by the Mon- 
tauk Club of Brooklyn, in Honor of Senator Depew's 
Eightieth Birthday, April 25, 1914 11 

At the Twenty-fourth Annual Dinner given by the Mon- 
tauk Club of Brooklyn, in Honor of Senator Depew's 
Eighty-first Birthday, May 1, 1915 35 

At the Dinner given to Senator Depew by his Railroad 
Associates, in Honor of his Eightieth Birthday, The 
University Club, New York City, May 5, 1914 .. .. 63 

At the Reception given by the Union League Club of 
New York City, in Honor of Senator Depew's Eight- 
ieth Birthday, May 8, 1914 75 

As Presiding Officer of the Meeting of the Building of the 
Railroad Branch, Young Men's Christian Association, 
on the Occasion of Closing of the Old BuUding for 
Removal to the New, May 28, 1914 84 

At the Grave of Lafayette on the Morning of July 4, 1914 98 

At the Fourth of July Banquet of the American Chamber 
of Commerce, Paris, on the Evening of July 4, 1914 .. 102 

The Tercentenary of the Chartered Commerce of the City 
of New York, Telling Its Story Since the Early Days of 
the Dutch and the Lesson that may be Learned from It 
for the Future. Written for the New York Times, 
November 1, 1914 113 

The World War. Reminiscences and Remarks at the 
Meeting of the New York Genealogical and Biograph- 
ical Society, January 8, 1915 136 

At the Dinner given by the Lotus Club in Honor of 
Ambassador Myron T. Herrick, January 9, 1915 .. .. 174 

As Presiding Officer at the Dinner given by the Union 
League Club of New York City to Mr. Samuel W. 

[7] 



Contents — Continued 

PAQE 

Fairchild, on hie Retirement from the Presidency of 
the Club, January 20, 1915 185 

Letter Written to Class '90, Wellesley College, at its 25th 
Anniversary, June 7, 1915 192 

The Lesson of Two Great Wars. Written for Leslie's 
Weekly, June 17, 1915 195 

Has Bryan Stepped Into ObUvion? Written for Leslie's 
Weekly, June 17, 1915 202 

At the Celebration of the Fourth of July, 1915, at White 
Sulphur Springs, W. Va 213 

At the Dinner given by the Pilgrim Society of New York 
to the Allies' Loan Envoys from Great Britain and 
France at Sherry's, September 30, 1915 226 

"The Art of PubUc Speaking," before the West Side 
Young Men's Christian Association, New York City, 
October 15, 1915 239 

At the Yale Club, New York City, in Celebration of the 
Opening of the New Club House, November 18, 1915 252 

At the Annual Dinner of the "Amen Comer," being the 
15th Anniversary of the Society, Waldorf-Astoria, New 
York City, December 3, 1915 260 

"Keep A-Goin'." Interview from the New York 
Tribune, December 6, 1915 267 

Preface Written to Arthur Wallace Dunn's "Gridiron 
Nights" 270 

At the Luncheon given by the Pilgrim Society of New 
York to Sir Robert Borden, Prime Minister of Canada, 
Ritz-Carlton, December 23, 1915 272 

Christmas at Yale Sixty-odd Years Ago and Now .. 280 

At the Dinner given by the Repubhcan Club of the City 
of New York, in Honor of its President, Mr. James R. 
Sheffield, January 6, 1916 287 



[8] 



" Keep A-Goin' " 

If you strike a thorn or rose, 
If it hails or if it snows, 

Keep a-goin' ! 
'Tain't no use to sit and whine 
When the fish ain't on your line, 
Bait your hook and keep a-tryin', 

Keep a-goin'! 

When the weather kills your crop, 
When you tumble from the top. 

Keep a-goin'! 
S'pose you're out o' every dime, 
Bein' so ain't any crime. 
Tell the world you're feehn' prime, 

Keep a-goin' ! 

When it looks like all is up. 
Drain the sweetness from the cup, 

Keep a-goin' ! 
See the wild birds on the wing. 
Hear the bells that sweetly sing, 
When you feel like sighin', sing. 

Keep a-goin' I 

By 'permission of the avihor, Mr. Frank L. StarUon 



9] 



Speech at the Twenty-third Annual Dinner 
of the Montauk Club of Brooklyn, in 
Celebration of Mr. Depew's Eightieth 
Birthday, April 25, 1914. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the 
Montauk Club: 

It is self-evident that these celebrations must 
find me eighty. That period has arrived and 
as they reckoned in the ancient times on the 
twenty-third day of April in the year of our 
Lord one thousand nine hundred and fourteen 
(this is an incident) and the twenty-third of 
the annual dinners by the Montauk Club in 
honor of his birthday (this is important) — 
Chauncey M. Depew became eighty years of 
age. The club chronicler will record that he 
was in all respects in as good condition as on 
the first of these happy events nearly a quarter 
of a century ago. There is only one minor note 
in our joy, and that is the absence of so many 
who were in that original charming company. 
But their places have been taken by their sons, 
and to me the first of these remarkable gather- 
ings is so recreated that I seem to be greeted and 
welcomed by the same good fellows and cordial 
friends. 

Eighty seems to be universally regarded as a 

[n] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

sort of almost impossible climateric. In all 
countries and among all peoples it is an event, 
and as everybody is hoping to reach the same 
age, the days of the man of eighty are shortened 
by everybody anxiously asking, "How did you 
do it? Give us the combination." 

The Psalmist gave distinction to this age by 
his declaration in the ninetieth psalm, "The 
days of our age are three score and ten and 
though men be so strong that they come to 
four score years, yet is their strength then but 
labor and sorrow; so soon passeth it away and 
we are gone." But times were far different 
when the Psalmist wrote. The sanitation of 
to-day, the methods for preserving health, the 
wonderful discoveries in medicine and surgery, 
the elimination of perils to Ufe and eugenics 
were then unknown. It is a tribute to their 
outdoor life that any of them hved to seventy. 
No one, even with all the knowledge and skill 
in our day, could hope to reach eighty if he en- 
joyed all the pleasures of David, nor would we 
even at seventy be improved by the remedy 
King David's physicians devised to keep him 
warm. John Bigelow writing his memoirs at 
ninety-two was as cheerful, hopeful, charming 
and inspiring a man as I knew of any age, and 
for ten years showed no sign that beyond eighty 
"his strength was but labor and sorrow." 
Neither did Gladstone, whom I met in the flush 
of his great victory at eighty-three. The Ger- 
f 121 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

man Ambassador records that Thiers at eighty- 
four in his discussions with him, which saved 
France, was the Uvehest and ablest Frenchman 
whom he had met. I found Lord Halsbury, 
ex-Lord Chancellor of England, one of the most 
active and interesting of men at eighty-five, 
and now at eighty-seven he is writing a monu- 
mental work, the revision and codification of 
the laws of England. Lord Palmerston, when 
Prime Minister at eighty-three, said that the 
prime of life was seventy-nine, and Sir William 
Crooks, the scientist, says he has at eighty-one 
been so absorbed in the marvels of science and 
its possibihties that age has never occurred to 
him and he has laid out work which will require 
fifty years to complete. As an example from 
the industrial world, I was associated as an 
Attorney with Commodore Vanderbilt during 
the later years of his life. He was more alert, 
wise and efficient at eighty than at any period 
and the acknowledged leader in the railway en- 
terprises of that time. 

A few years ago gray hairs were a fatal handi- 
cap to employment. Professor Osier did a 
good service for the unemployed when he de- 
clared that at sixty we should be chloroformed. 
It led to wide and universal discussion and de- 
veloped the fact that the best work in every 
department of human endeavor is done by 
men over fifty. Our Presidents are vigorous 
illustrations. Taft was never so active as now. 
[131 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TTV'O 

Colonel Roosevelt is hailed as the most active 
and resourceful man of our time, and Wilson 
leads his Party and Congress, with the same 
obedience from both, as Napoleon had from 
the Old Guard. Edison told me twenty-odd 
years ago that he intended to bring grand 
opera within the reach and enjoyment of the 
masses in city and country. The cinemato- 
graph would put upon the film the moving pic- 
ture of Melba, Patti or Caruso in action, while 
the phonograph would at the moment record 
the voice. He thought he could make the 
illusion so perfect that there would be no differ- 
ence in expression, gesture, action and voice be- 
tween the living presentation at the opera and 
its mimic reproduction on the village stage. 
Since that conversation the great wizard has 
given to the world many inventions of ines- 
timable value, but always working on his orig- 
inal idea, he celebrated his sixty-seventh birth- 
day last month by laboring in his laboratory to 
perfect this marvel. 

The Supreme Court of the United States is 
the most powerful judicial body in the world. 
Its Judges were never worked so hard nor more 
efficient than now. Chief Justice White is 
brilhantly meeting the responsibilities and per- 
forming the duties of his great office at sixty- 
seven, and the Associate Justices illustrate the 
value of maturity with wisdom, discretion and 
fearless patience. 

[14 1 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

The seven wonders of the world which en- 
grossed the admiration of the ancients, and 
the seven wonders of the Renaissance period 
seem trivial compared with the achievements 
of the period in which it has been my privilege 
to hve and work. I was thirteen years old 
when the Hudson River Railroad completed its 
first forty miles from New York to Peekskill. 
I remember as if it were yesterday the great 
crowds from fifty miles around, the wild ex- 
citement of the people as the train rolled into 
the station grounds and the shouts and screams 
as the whistle blew, while drivers could not 
control their horses. In describing the scene 
at a dinner in Europe last sunmier, I said that 
the last seen or heard of a prosperous farmer 
whose blooded team bolted when the whistle 
of the locomotive blew was his hair flying in the 
wind as his horses were running away over the 
hill, and they doubtless were running still. ''That 
is impossible, sir," said a grave banker. "That 
happened sixty-six years ago." That forty- 
four miles of railroad has expanded into a sys- 
tem of twenty thousand, and that boy became 
and was for thirteen years its President. It 
was one of the first of the network of rails which 
ties the West, the Northwest and the Pacific to 
New York, and which have developed the 
wilderness into populous and prosperous com- 
munities and made the City of New York the 
metropolis of the western hemisphere and a 
\15] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

financial and industrial center second to none 
in the world. 

We have become so famiUar with the tele- 
phone and it has become such a necessity in our 
family, social and business life, that we seem 
always to have had it, but Graham Bell's in- 
vention was made only thirty-seven years ago, 
and the phonograph was revealed to the world 
by Edison one year later in 1877. Roentgen 
discovered the X-rays in 1895, only seventeen 
years ago, and their use in surgery has been 
one of the blessings of the age. It is only re- 
cently that we have photographs of daring 
operators, who are encountering perils unknown 
to the hunter or explorer, in reveaUng to the 
world wild beasts at rest and in attack, vol- 
canoes in eruption, and shells exploding on 
battlefields with the photographer on the firing 
line. It is reported that Villa is accompanied 
by a cinematograph operator with whom he is 
in partnership, and that the charge may be 
halted with men dropping dead or wounded all 
about if the films need adjustment. It is only 
within ten years that Marconi has perfected the 
most beneficent invention of aU time — the wire- 
less telegraph. Within the same short period 
radium has revolutionized science, and added 
incalculable resources to the equipment of the 
physician in combating diseases which have 
heretofore baffled his skill. Dr. Carrel, within 
the year, at the Rockefeller Institute by 

[161 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

demonstrating that tissues can be kept alive 
almost indefinitely and successfully grafted, 
has proved that there is certainty in the specu- 
lations of the possibiUty of prolonging Ufe. 
In February of this year President Wilson 
pressed the button of the electric wire which 
blew up the Gamboa dam and united the 
waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 
The aspirations of Columbus had been attained, 
the dream of Charles the Fifth of Spain real- 
ized, but not under the Spanish flag. In the 
month of February four hundred and ninety 
years before, Balboa saw the Pacific from the 
heights of Darien. He descended to the shore, 
and wading into the sea raised his sword, pro- 
claiming that the Pacific ocean and all lands 
adjoining were annexed to Spain. Eight years 
after, Magellan found and added to the crown 
of Spain the PhiUppine Islands. Now, this 
achievement of the greatest of enterprises by a 
new people with institutions and Hberties which 
Charles the Fifth and his successors fought for 
five hundred years, and with a world power and 
prestige far surpassing that of this mighty 
monarch, and that same people governing and 
preparing the Philippines for self-government, 
makes us reverently repeat what Morse said on 
the success of the telegraph, "What God hath 
wrought." 

Times have greatly changed during my 
recollections of seventy and intense activities 
[17] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

of sixty years. We are not happier, but have 
more opportunities for happiness. Unrest has 
kept pace with progress. The atmosphere of 
the village in those earlier days was ideal. 
There were no very rich or very poor. Church- 
going was universal and there was a genuine 
Christian democracy. There was much more 
admiration than envy of the prosperous. Most 
of the famihes had lived in the village for gen- 
erations and knowledge of family origin and 
history was destructive of snobbery. The repro- 
ductions of family traits in children and grand- 
children cultivated respect for heredity, and 
the bracing influence of honest and enterprising 
ancestors was recognized. One hundred thou- 
sand dollars was the limit of the hopes of the 
most successful. There was neither complaint 
nor discussion of the high cost of living, for 
there was no high living. The Lyceum lecture 
brought to appreciative audiences the best 
writers and thinkers. While I was a youth on 
the lecture committee, we had Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Theodore 
Parker, Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Storrs, Dr. 
Chapin, Wendell Phillips and nearly every fam- 
ous writer and orator in the country. Literary 
and dramatic societies flourished among the 
young people, and an excellent circulating 
hbrary was universally patronized. There was 
little reading or interest on sociological ques- 
tions, and the subject of sex was not permitted 
[181 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

in literature or conversation. But the classic 
authors of the Elizabethan and Queen Anne 
periods, now unknown to the general reader^ 
were eagerly devoured. Sir Walter Scott, Feni- 
more Cooper and Hawthorne were favorites, 
while the oncoming volumes of Dickens and 
Thackeray were eagerly welcomed. The girls 
could not tango or turkey trot, but were grace- 
ful in square dances and the waltz, and in the 
intervals on the piazza, the staircase or the con- 
servatory were equally charming to the college 
graduate or the village swain. They were ex- 
perts as well in the art of the cook, the skill of 
the dressmaker and the milliner, and the econ- 
omies which get much out of Httle in comfort 
and show in the early struggUng and rising days 
of the young married professional or business 
man. When he had won his way as so many 
did, she was equal to the responsibihties of the 
wife of the statesman or milHonaire, and her 
husband gratefully acknowledged the large 
measure of his success which was due to his 
wife. 

Samuel Woodworth's famous song, 

"The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 
The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the 
well," 

was true then in poetry and fact. It was com- 
mon all over Westchester County. Its cool 

[19] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

waters had refreshed Washington and Rocham- 
beau as well as the British soldiers. Its vital- 
izing properties have carried to vigorous old age 
multitudes of men and women. 

Driving home after a hot day in Court, I 
have often jumped over a farmer's fence, swung 
the long pole, dipped the old bucket into the 
well, drew it out and drank from the brim. I 
have never since had a draught of any fluid of 
any kind from anywhere so good and refreshing. 
Now both well and bucket are condenmed by 
the Board of Health, and the bucket is found 
only in the museum with this label on, "An 
antique microbe breeder." 

I heard Dickens lecture, or rather recite his 
novels. The characters were as hving reaHties 
and as close friends of mine as the members of 
my family. Dickens had rare talents both as 
a speaker and actor. Micawber, Captain Cut- 
tle, Dick Sawyer, you saw all in his inimitable 
impersonations. I had for my companion a 
young lady, a leader of the fashionable set. 
"How did you like it?" I said, entranced and 
deUghted. "Oh," she remarked coldly, "such 
common people are not in my set, and I never 
expect to meet them." Three husbands, a 
scandal and a divorce were her contributions to 
a novel of society. When a dinner was given 
to Dickens at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Horace 
Greeley presided. As he rose to toast the 
guest, he was the personification of Pickwick, 
[20] 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

and the crowd, including Dickens, shouted with 
joy. I heard Thackeray dehver his lectures — 
The Four Georges. His big head and massive 
figure were very impressive. To hear him was 
an intellectual treat, and at the clubs he be- 
came one of the most popular of visitors. He 
wanted to do everything Americans did, and 
when his host had a plate of saddle rock oysters 
each as large as his hand put before him, Thack- 
eray asked, "What am I to do with these?" 
''Swallow them whole in our way," said his 
host. Thackeray closed his eyes, and when 
the bivalve disappeared, remarked, "I feel as 
if I had swallowed a baby." 

One remarkable change in popular opinion 
since fifty or sixty years ago is the attitude 
toward rich men. The first State Convention 
I attended as a delegate was in 1858. Edwin 
D. Morgan was nominated for Governor, be- 
cause he was the wealthiest merchant in New 
York. It was considered most commendable 
that he was wilhng to devote to the service of 
the public the talents which had made him 
successful in business, and he was triumphantly 
elected. There were few millionaires. They 
were well known and could be enumerated on 
the fingers on one hand. Then they were pub- 
he-spirited citizens, now they are malefactors 
of great wealth. Then the people wanted rail- 
roads and the building of railroads was a 
hazardous speculation. They wanted more 

[211 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

and finer steamboats. They wanted factories 
in their towns and offered every inducement to 
secure them. They wanted water powers im- 
proved and natural resources developed. They 
were totally unwilUng to tax themselves for 
these objects, but vigorously applauded the 
men of wealth and enterprise who were willing 
to take the risks. Many failed and lost every- 
thing. Success was an illustration of the sur- 
vival of the fittest. They were held to be en- 
titled to their wealth and became popular idols. 
There has been no greater change in this half 
century than in the attitude of government to 
business. Business is the methods by which 
the individual alone or in combination with 
others secures the means for the support of 
himself and his family, provides for his old age 
and its infirmities, and accumulates the prop- 
•erty which will care for those dependent upon 
him when he is incapacitated or dies. Accord- 
ing as he is gifted in the use of the money he 
makes, he adds in various degrees wealth to 
independence. Every step of his advance re- 
quires help of more people and adds to the 
amount of employment available for their sup- 
port of other members of the conamunity. That 
•there were limitless opportunities for the indi- 
vidual has been the pride of our people. Our 
•institutions were founded on the individual and 
the genius of our government was to give him 
diberty and encouragement. He organized and 

[22] 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

engineered the peopling and development of 
new territories and developed them into sover- 
eign States of the American Union. He carried 
with him the church and the schoolhouse. 
Under his inspiration the miits of the State, its 
counties and its towns became miniature com- 
monwealths, ruled in their smaller dimensions 
by the town meeting and the more populous by- 
representative government. All admit that 
this process has made the United States the 
most powerful, the freest, the happiest and the 
most prosperous nation the world has ever 
known. Now there is acute antagonism by 
the government to business. The calendars of 
the courts are crowded with suits under existing 
laws and the calendars of Congress and of the 
States Legislatures with bills for new laws 
against business. The assembling of legislative 
bodies is viewed with alarm, and the declara- 
tion of the President of the United States, in 
his recent message, that he would be "kind to 
business," was hailed as a declaration of eman- 
cipation. 

The highly organized industrial nations are 
engaged in the fiercest rivalry in their compe- 
tition for the world's markets. This vast inter- 
change has risen in value and volume from less 
than ten thousand millions of dollars fifty years 
ago to twenty-five thousand millions ten years 
ago, and thirty-five thousand millions last 
year. Our mercantile marine fifty years ago 

[23] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

had sixty-six per cent, of the tonnage of the 
ocean, and now in overseas or foreign freight 
trade it has less than nine per cent. 

Germany has increased her navy and mer- 
cantile marine by leaps and bounds to add to 
her foreign commerce and give employment to 
her people at home. The government through 
special rates on its State-owned railways, its 
subsidies and other favors, is practically a 
partner in its industrial development and ex- 
ploitation. Great Britain and France are active 
rivals. They encourage big business at home 
and its exportation abroad, and the commanders 
of their ships and their diplomatic and consular 
representatives are eager agents for the sale of 
the products of their factories and the penetra- 
tion of their merchants with their merchandise 
into every competitive market in the world. 
The attitude of our government may not be 
hostile to American citizens and enterprises in 
other lands, but it is not cordial. The doctrine 
of caveat emptor, or in other words at their own 
risk, is in the position of Americans who are 
thus courageous and enterprising, and some of 
us think also patriotic. But this will not last. 
Theories yield to necessities. A congested pop- 
ulation finding the home market insufficient for 
the consumption of the products of its indus- 
tries, will invade other continents and force our 
government to respond to the needs of Ameri- 
can enterprise. 

[241 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

The exemption of our coastwise shipping 
from tolls on the Panama Canal was made 
under the pretext of a right which is denied by 
the statesmen and diplomats who made the 
treaty and most of our ablest lawyers who have 
studied it. The demand of the President for a 
repeal of the exemption is statesmanlike and 
courageous. But the repeal was really a sur- 
render by indirection to that governmental as- 
sistance by subsidy to our mercantile marine, 
which, if scientifically pursued, will once more 
put our flag on the seas and give us our place 
among mercantile nations. This conversion to 
old-fashioned protection and subsidy under 
other names is of the Billy Sunday rather than 
the orthodox variety. It may not last, but it 
is progress and enlightenment. Its more recent 
manifestations of twisting the tail of the British 
Lion and fighting over again the battles of 
Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown is the 
sugar-coating to the pill — the results are the 
same. When subsidy is denounced as a vice, 
but under another name is a virtue which wins 
votes, Pope's famous lines occur to me: 

"Vice is a monster of such frightful mien 
As to be hated needs but to be seen; 
Yet seen too oft— familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

The statesmen who are using destructive, in- 
[25] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

stead of constructive methods toward business 
are able and patriotic men. But few of them 
have ever been in touch with affairs or have any- 
practical knowledge of the vast and complicated 
machinery which moves and controls modern 
credit, finance and industry. The two most 
used and abused words in the language are 
''efficiency" and "privilege." The efficiency 
expert says to the harassed railway's official or 
manufacturer, "You do not require reUef from 
intolerable burdens. If you understood your 
business, you would carry them with ease and 
profit." In other words, speed up labor, and 
this the efficiency fraud knows that labor unions 
very properly will not permit employers, es- 
pecially corporations, to do. Though laws are 
equal and all have the same chance, yet in our 
new vocabulary prosperity becomes "privilege" 
and dangerous to the pubfic welfare. 

Secretary Lamar, of the Cabinet of Mr. 
Cleveland, made a speech at a famous dinner in 
New York. The speeches were long and seri- 
ous. I came on last, and to reUeve the situa- 
tion, indulged in some fun at the expense of 
those who had preceded me, including Mr. 
Lamar. He was much worried for fear my 
forced construction would be taken seriously 
and complained that a Cabinet Minister speaks 
for his Administration and for the time is the 
mouthpiece of his President. Mr. Cleveland 
enforced this view and told me that one of his 

[26] 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

Cabinet, who was to orate on a patriotic occa- 
sion in the South, submitted to him the manu- 
script in advance. The President said to him: 
"It is all right, but will take thi'ee hours, and 
no New York audience would stand that." 
To which the Minister answered, "In South 
Carolina an audience wants five hours and in- 
sists on three." 

That rule of the responsibility of the Cabinet 
was in force long before Mr. Cleveland, but 
does not prevail with the New Freedom. The 
Postmaster-General advocates the taking over 
by the government of the telegraphs and the 
telephones. Since this was done in England, 
the telephone service has become so bad that 
churches complain of the increase of profanity, 
and in Paris the service is so impossible that 
they are in despair of the Republic. The de- 
ficiencies in operations in both countries are so 
great that they embarrass the finance ministers 
and the squeeze draws another groan of anguish 
from the taxpayers. It is a step in centraUzation 
which makes Jefferson a myth and Hamilton 
the guide of our poUcies. It is not believed that 
the President is in sympathy with this far- 
reaching scheme, but its advocacy from such a 
source adds to uncertainty, and uncertainty is 
the mother of unrest. 

The newspapers reported the Secretary of 
Labor as presenting in a speech a new doctrine 
on property. It was in effect that a man's or 

[27] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

a woman's title to property depends upon the 
will of the community. If the neighbors do not 
think the owner makes a use of it which a 
majority approves, they will vote it away. 
Attach to this doctrine the progressive idea of 
the recall of Judges and decisions and the situa- 
tion is both novel and entertaining. The crowd 
votes that the unpopular man shall be deprived 
of his home. He appeals to the courts, which 
would decide a man cannot be deprived of his 
property without due compensation. The same 
crowd which voted to take the poor fellow's 
house or farm vote to recall the decision, and it 
then becomes law. Every expression and ac- 
tion of the President is against any such doc- 
trine. But it gives a boost to uncertainty and 
more nerves to unrest. 

I was always fond of the theatre, and the 
clown at the circus is still a dehght. I have 
never seen the equals of the early comedians, 
like John Brougham and Joseph Jefferson. 
The plays which Wallack presented w^re clean, 
healthy and virile and admirably acted. Daly 
opened a new vista of entertaimnent in his 
society dramas, with the young actors whom 
he trained and who did such credit to their 
teacher. It would not be possible to find 
enough people who could have such loyalty to 
their favorite and hostility to his rival as those 
who created the riot in Astor Place over the 
merits of Forest or Macready. I doubt if the 

[28] 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

stage ever presented such perfection in the art 
as Edwin Booth in Richeheu or Hamlet. The 
assassination of President Lincoln by his 
brother, Wilkes Booth, drove Edwin into re- 
tirement for some years. We formed a strong 
committee to bring him back. The theatre 
was so ticketed that trouble was impossible 
and his genius made the house wdld with en- 
thusiasm. The press took it up, and after 
that he had no trouble. Mrs. Astor, the 
acknowledged leader of society, a very brilliant 
woman, gave a large dinner to Booth for help 
and welcome. At the dinner occurred a start- 
ling example of the things better left unsaid. 
The conversation ran upon when it was best 
for his reputation for an eminent man to die. 
Illustrations were given of men who lost their 
reputations by living too long. A diplomat 
present said, "The most distinguished example 
of a man dying at the right time was Lincoln. 
If he had lived out his term, he would have be- 
come most unpopular." Booth nearly fainted 
and only the tact of the hostess in quickly 
changing the subject saved the situation. 
Dramas to illustrate sex problems or the white 
slave traffic would neither have been permitted 
nor submitted to by any audience. The 
"Black Crook" at Niblo's was the first of the 
"leg dramas," and for a long time only men 
attended. The moving pictures have their 
merits, but nothing we now possess equals the 
[29] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

pleasure which Barnum gave. I came as a 
boy from my home at Peekskill to see at his 
museum, which was at the corner of Ann Street 
and Broadway, the Pawnee and Sioux chiefs 
whom he had secured after a massacre that 
had shocked the whole country. Nobody could 
imagine how he got them and no one doubted 
that he had them. Their war dance was blood- 
curdling and their yells hair-raising. In the fury 
of their play they were kept from rushing among 
and scalping the audience only by a guard of 
soldiers. I was so entranced and absorbed 
that I lingered long after the audience had de- 
parted. That August day was insufferably 
hot. The Indians were in buffalo robes, feath- 
ers and paint. I was restored to consciousness 
when the Pawnee chief said to the Sioux chief, 
in the richest brogue, "Mike, do ye mind, if it 
gets any hotter I'll melt sure." An Englishman 
of high rank came wdth letters to me, and to my 
question whom he would hke to meet, answered, 
"Bamum, the great and only Barnum." I 
told Barnum, who said, "An Enghsh gentleman 
knows how to meet an American gentleman." 
My friend was delighted, had Barmun to din- 
ner, and this wonderful showman was at his 
best explaining his methods. "But," said his 
host, "you will be found out and your career 
closed." "Never," said Barnum; "fools are 
bom every second and they love to be fooled." 
One of the principal sources of healthy 
[30] 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

longevity and the pleasure of living is a sense 
of humor and keen enjoyment of it. People 
who laugh easily and often never have appendi- 
citis. American humor and its cultivation 
were accelerated during the administration of 
President Lincoln. No President ever had 
presented to him so many and such vexing 
problems or from men so important and diffi- 
cult. He rarely argued, . but illustrated his 
position and confused his questioner by an apt 
story admirably told. He told me eleven of 
them to show how each story had confounded 
his questioner or critic and ended the discussion. 
These anecdotes spread through Washington 
and all over the country, and we became a 
nation of story-tellers. When I was Secretaiy 
of State and hving in Albany fifty years ago, 
Artemus Ward, whose fame as a humorist was 
world-wide, came there to lecture. The audi- 
ence was made up of the bluest blood of the 
old colonial Dutch aristocracy. They did not 
crack a smile until the evening was half over, 
when Ward came to the front of the platform, 
and looking whimsically over the crowd for 
five minutes without a word, finally said, 
"That last remark of mine was a joke." The 
Vans after this laughed immoderately at every- 
thing. The next night Artemus Ward was at 
Troy. The Trojans had heard of the Albany 
density, and to show that they knew a joke 
when they saw it, and that they saw it at once, 
[31] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

they began to laugh when the lecturer began 
and soon were in violent hysterics whether 
Ward was speaking or looking at them. Ohver 
Wendell Holmes, Mark Twain, Bret Harte and 
an innumerable company have contributed to 
the happiness of the people and the gayety of 
nations. The increasing intensity of our lives, 
the craze for money, and the craze for new and 
bizarre amusements among those who have 
money have limited conversation to the stock 
market, the shop and the affairs of society. I 
fear it is rapidly destroying American humor. 
The venerable witticisms of the camp among 
the Philippine veterans who had formed the 
Caraboa society delighted Roosevelt while 
President, and Taft's laughter made the coun- 
try join. But after the recent rehearsal, the 
most distinguished officers of the Army and 
Navy were reprimanded and only saved from 
court martial by the protest of the people. 
Within a few weeks the American Ambassador 
to Great Britain ventured in an after-dinner 
speech to follow Lowell and Phelps, Lincoln and 
Hay, Choate and Reid in those pleasantries 
which add to the interest of the occasion and 
contribute to international peace and good 
fellowship. But the United States Senate 
called him down with unusual unanimity and 
one Senator solemnly declared that a joke or 
humor in an after-dinner speech was an un- 
pardonable offence. The Gridiron Club of 

[321 



TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

Washington has always been privileged to put 
officials from the President down upon its grill, 
and the victims have enjoyed the roast. But 
it is reported that the fun at the last entertain- 
ment of these merry gentlemen was indignantly 
resented as coarse, personal and abusive. As 
Lincoln's stories made us a nation of jokers and 
story-tellers, possibly these stem rebukes from 
the highest official authorities may make us a 
nation of bores. Let us hope not. 

I have found the best insurance pohcy is the 
abihty to say no. Many of my friends have 
died before their time, because they could not 
resist the appetites which destroyed them. 
Abstinence is hard at first, requires will power 
and self-denial, but abstinence soon conquers 
desire. Ever after is the joy of victory and 
confidence in that mainspring of life — the will. 
Horace Greeley once said to me after the pay- 
ment of notes he had endorsed had swept away 
years of savings, "Chauncey, I want you to 
have a law passed making it a felony, punish- 
able with life imprisonment, for a man to put 
his name on the back of another man's paper." 
As I lament about one quarter of my earnings 
gone that way because of my inabihty to say 
no, and without any benefit to my friends, I 
sympathize with Mr. Greeley. 

It seems to me that the agnostic and the 
iconoclast lose much of the restfulness, content 
and satisfaction which come from faith. Bet- 

[33] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

ter be often deceived than lose faith in friends. 
Faith in our church or poHtical party grows by 
work. The Richmond colored preacher said, 
"My brethren and sisters, faith can move 
mountains, but whar's de faith?" It is behind 
the strength which is constantly moving moun- 
tains of difficulty, troubles and worry. 

I have tried, or known others who have tried, 
allopathy, homeopathy, osteopathy. Christian 
science, faith cures, Swedish exercise, massage, 
famous healing springs, Turkish baths, chasing 
climates and other famed preventives and cures 
for relief from ills, or to prevent their recurrence 
or preserve long and healthy hfe. All have 
merits. But mind governs matter and to laugh 
with our friends, to contribute to their cheer- 
fulness, to find out and enjoy the inexhaustible 
good fellowship which can be found in every- 
body, have done more than all else to keep me 
healthy and happy. The fated four-score years 
have gone by. The past has had its full share 
of accidents, mistakes, errors, misfortune and 
hard luck, but its compensations are so many 
and so great, that each knockdown seems in the 
retrospect just the punishment and discipline 
needed to learn the lesson for a fruitful life and 
the enjoyment of its blessings. 



[34] 



Speech at the Twenty-fourth Annual Dinner 
of the Montauk Club of Brooklyn, in 
Celebration of Mr. Depew's Eighty-first 
Birthday, May 1, 1915. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

For nearly a quarter of a century you have 
honored me by an annual celebration of my 
birthday. Each anniversity has had in the 
year since the preceding one much of interest, 
National and State, and in pohtics, in social 
evolution, in rapidly changing or crystaUizing 
theories of hfe and government. But if these 
anniversaries ran back to the dawn of history 
there would be found no year like that through 
which we are passing, and if we could look for- 
ward through eternity it is not possible there 
should ever be such another. 

The forecasts of statesmen are failures. The 
laudable and apparently successful efforts of 
the advocates of peace have become suddenly 
a ghastly farce. The higher ideals of Nations 
have been submerged in racial enmities and 
trade rivalries. Organized Christianity is ques- 
tioned as to the results of two thousand years' 
teaching, while milUons of Christians are kilhng 
each other, and all the combatants calUng upon 
God to help their just and righteous cause. 
Other milhons of women and children rear rude 
[35] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

shelters out of the ruins of their once happy 
homes and only reUef supphes from neutral na- 
tions are saving them from starvation. But 
they are enduring sufferings and death with 
martyr spirit which would not recall, if it was 
possible, the bread-winner fathers, sons and 
husbands fighting in the field. The agreements 
of the Hague Tribunal solemnly ratified by the 
contracting governments are shelved for the 
curiosity of the future historian. The warring 
powers repudiate these compacts, and neutral 
nations dare not protest, because protest means 
action and action means war. The Hague 
Peace Palace is to let. 

There never were preparations for war of 
such vast magnitude in order to preserve peace, 
and the perfection of the preparations made 
war inevitable. The irony of the situation is 
that the fine is invisible between the size of 
armies and navies necessary for the national de- 
fence and mihtarism which provokes war. 

After exhaustion has brought the belhgerents 
on one side to seek terms of surrender, in the 
wisdom of that settlement will be either the 
seeds of another and more sanguinary war, or a 
peace which so saves the pride and dignity of 
the vanquished that the peace of the world may 
be assured for all the future. Recent history 
furnishes two wonderful examples. After the 
Franco-Prussian war victory was followed by 
vengeance. France was impoverished by an 

[36] 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

indemnity so large that it was expected to 
pauperize her people for ever and despoiled of 
her fairest provinces. Hate and revenge grew 
with the unexpected and marvelous recovery 
and prosperity of France, and her sons in- 
heriting the feehngs of their fathers are cheer- 
fully and enthusiastically battling to right the 
wrongs of 1870. In nations as with individuals, 
the spoiler waxes strong, arrogant and reckless. 
The spoiled nurses his wounds and bides his 
time. The second example is our Civil War, 
North and South, each believing they were 
right, battled as our race will until by force of 
superior numbers, wealth and equipment, the 
Union won and the Confederates were ex- 
hausted. Here in civil strife, with its passion 
and vindictiveness, were the possibihties of 
endless revolts and revolutions. But the rebel 
States were welcomed back into the Union with 
the same rights, powers and liberties under a 
common Constitution as the loyal States. The 
only exaction was the abolition of slavery which 
had been the cause of the war. Union and Con- 
federate veterans fight over their battles in 
memory only at happy re-unions, and their chil- 
dren, knowing no North, no South, no East, no 
West, are proud citizens of the United States. 
For the second time in half a century since the 
close of the Civil War, the South and its eco- 
nomic theories are in absolute control of the 
government. With militarism eliminated and 

[371 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

peace preserved by an international police on 
land and sea, the greatest of wars may prove 
for mankind the most marvelous of blessings. 

This year is remarkable for its centennaries. 
One hundred years ago Napoleon was crushed 
at Waterloo by the timely arrival of the Prussian 
army under Blucher to the assistance of the 
English under Wellington. Now the French 
are saved from annihilation by the cordial sup- 
port of the whole naval and military power of 
the British Empire. We take too little into 
account in estimating the causes of the align- 
ment of nations at one period in alliance, at 
another in hostihty, of the changing ideals 
which govern the minds and action of peoples. 
One hundred years ago Bismarck was born. It 
is astonishing how few men there are in recorded 
history whose genius and constructive ability 
have influenced the world in all succeeding cen- 
turies. Caesar kept Rome alive for four hun- 
dred years and until Roman law had become 
the ground work of the jurispinidence of all 
modern nations. Washington won the inde- 
pendence of his country, and then as President 
of the Convention which framed the Constitu- 
tion, by his influence in securing its adoption 
by the States and his wisdom in the inaugura- 
tion and practical working of the new govern- 
ment, created and placed upon enduring foun- 
dations the Republic of the United States. It 
is an axiom that the influence of these institu- 

[38] 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

tions have been world wide. Napoleon repre- 
sented the military energies of the French Revo- 
lution. The greatest soldier of the ages, he 
shattered the faith of Europe in the Divine 
Right of Kings and placing manikins upon the 
emptied thrones dissipated by the sunlight of 
pubUcity the ideas of royal anointment from 
Heaven. Bismarck by his diplomacy and his 
victorious policy of blood and iron, organized 
military autocracy as the dominating power of 
the twentieth century and apparently checked 
and rendered helpless the fast penetrating 
liberal ideas of the French Revolution. But 
these ideas made France a Republic, with a 
president without authority, and changed the 
autocratic and oligarchic government of George 
the Third to the responsive democracy of 
George V. So when King Edward VII, prince 
of good fellows and most tactful of diplomats, 
and Delcasse, the French foreign minister, came 
together they settled the threatening war over 
Marchand and Fashoda by the discovery that 
centuries of bitter enmity between the French 
and the English had passed away by both peo- 
ples having evoluted into the same ideals and 
the same responsibilities for democratic de- 
velopment and social justice. So keenly did 
the German Foreign Office, which had hoped 
for war between the two countries, resent this 
change that they said peremptorily to France, 
''Either dismiss Delcass6 or Germany de- 
[391 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

clares war." No such imperious demand was 
ever made upon a sovereign state. But France 
was cowed and Delcass^ was dismissed. But 
his work survives in the trenches of France and 
Belgium and the mastery of the seas for the 
AlUed forces. To-day, after a hundred years, 
Napoleon and Bismarck upon the old field of 
Waterloo are leading millions of soldiers under 
new allignments in bloody battles for mastery 
in the affairs of the world of the ideas for which 
they stand. 

The event of this century which in future 
years will be regarded as the most important 
and significant of them all is the hundredth 
year of peace between the United States and 
Great Britain. The subject of international 
peace is to be the engrossing topic, when this 
terrible war ends, with statesmen, pubhcists, 
educators and the people. The incontestable 
fact that these two powerful nations, with fre- 
quent and graver causes for war than many 
which have plunged other governments into 
Hfe-and-death battles, have settled all their 
difficulties by diplomacy during all these gener- 
ations, and have kept a boundary hne of three 
thousand miles without a fort, and inland seas 
washing all their interior shores without a 
battleship, is a monumental argument for the 
peace of the world. It wUl grow in the minds 
and imagination of other nations as time rolls 
on. The American Peace Commissioners at 

[40] 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

Ghent were the briUiant Henry Clay, the finely 
equipped John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, 
a trained diplomatist, James A. Bayard and 
Jonathan Russell. To meet them the British 
Government sent inferior men without power 
or decision except as instructed from the home 
office. It is an interesting fact that as the 
negotiations were about breaking off, the 
mighty authority and dominating will of the 
Duke of Wellington brushed aside all obstacles 
and forced an agreement. 

The City authorities of Ghent celebrated the 
event with a banquet at which the emotional 
and coruscating eloquence of Henry Clay found 
opportunity to introduce to the time-honored 
and well known speeches of Europe of that 
period, and still common, a flavor of the bound- 
less West and the imagery of the setting sun 
which fingers in the letters of those present. 
John Quincy Adams closed the evening by 
proposing this toast, "Ghent, the city of peace, 
may the gates of the Temple of Janus here 
closed not be opened again for a century." It 
was an inspiration in which those there had 
fittle faith, but its reafization makes it a rare 
prophecy. President Madison formally pro- 
claimed peace between the United States and 
Great Britain in a document as vital and in as 
full force to-day as when it was issued one hun- 
dred years ago on the 17th day of February, 
1815. 

411 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

Among these celebrations of events of the 
older tune, it will not be thought frivolous in an 
after-dinner speech, which permits anything fit 
to print, providing it is interesting, that a hun- 
dred years ago trousers were first worn by suf- 
fering men. The tailor who appeared in them 
in Bond street, London, was assaulted by the 
mob and arrested by the police for indecency. 
The Duke of Wellington next tried the fashion, 
but was turned away from the most important 
ball of the season at Allwich. His fresh laurels 
of Waterloo could not save him from the indig- 
nation of the British matron. The governor of 
the ball said, ''Your Grace cannot enter here. 
The guest at this ball must be dressed." The 
significance of trousers is that it marks the 
change which came in with the nineteenth cen- 
tury of nerve-racking habits of hurry and haste. 
Rest and repose no longer prolong and beautify 
our lives. The otium cum dignitate of Cicero 
has ceased to be a happy habit. The utilitarian 
says it cost Cicero his life, for he could have 
escaped Antony's assassins if he had hurried. 
The spirit of the age has cheapened literature. 
It is not that there are no great ^Titers, but 
there are no patient readers. The pot-boiler 
drives out the classics. The clipper ship re- 
duced the voyage to Europe from three months 
to six weeks, the steamship to ten days, and the 
Mauritania to five, while the cable annihilated 
distance. The stage coach and canal boat were 

[42] 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

superceded by the railroad, and the ten-mile- 
an-hour train evoluted into the Twentieth Cen- 
tury Limited which made Chicago, a thousand 
miles away, a shopping suburb of New York. 
The mail is too slow for the present competi- 
tion in business and the night letter by tele- 
graph carries orders from New York which are 
executed the next morning in all the markets 
of America and Europe. In 1876 Professor 
Graham Bell demonstrated the practicability 
of the telephone for short distances, and in 
1915 he talked easily three thousand miles 
across the continent with San Francisco. The 
Alhes have cut the cables to Germany, but the 
air encircling the globe can neither be cornered 
nor cut and Berlin by wireless communicates 
daily with New York. In 1877 I had an option 
on a sixth of the Bell Telephone for some days 
for ten thousand dollars. I consulted the most 
famous telegraphic expert in the country and 
he advised me to drop it. "It is a toy and 
commercially a fake," he said. Had I followed 
my strong faith in the enterprise I would to-day 
(if alive, which is doubtful) be a hundred mil- 
Uonaire. I have always lost money when fol- 
lowing the advice of experts. They are gov- 
erned by their data and lack imagination, and 
without imagination all things not demon- 
strated are to them worthless. But to return 
again to trousers. The old paraphernalia of 
man's nether garments, with its shoes, buckles, 
[43] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

stockings, breeches and flaps required ten 
minutes to put on. Trousers thirty seconds. 
Time is everything. A century of ten minutes 
saved each day by countless millions invents 
machinery, engineers' enterprises accumulate 
fortunes and fills libraries. 

When Emma Willard appeared before the 
New York Legislature in 1815 and petitioned 
for a charter for a Female College the Solons 
were thrown into a panic. They saw more evils 
to the church, the home and society in higher 
education for women than the antis do now in 
female suffrage. Her speech was a clear and 
prophetic outline of the girl college as it has 
developed and exists to-day. But the Legisla- 
ture unanimously rejected her petition and 
saved society. That brave and wonderful 
woman enhsted friends in her project, and with- 
out a charter established the first institution to 
place the opportunities for girls on an equality 
with those for boys one hundred years ago at 
Troy. Twenty-one years after Mary Lyon 
found that the success of Miss Willard's idea 
had penetrated the Great and General Court 
of Massachusetts under the sacred codfish in 
Boston and secured a charter for Mount Hol- 
yoke. Then slowly came, after titanic strug- 
gle, co-education at Oberlin and other colleges. 
Matthew Vassar, seeking the best use of his 
fortune for humanity, was advised to build and 
endow a college for women. He crossed the 
[441 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

ocean to consult William Chambers, the most 
famous educator of his time. That hard- 
headed and conservative Scot said to Vassar, 
**A safer investment than a college for girls 
would be a seminary for the bhnd and dumb or 
the weak in intellect." The burning contempt 
of Chambers's opinion for woman's intellect 
reacted on the philanthropist, and Vassar Col- 
lege was founded to bless the country in un- 
paralleled measure in its half century with its 
trained and cultured graduates and the im- 
petus given to university opportunities for 
girls, which have resulted in Wellesley, Smith, 
Barnard and Radcliffe, and the opening to 
women of the State universities. I can re- 
member as a boy that ''bluestocking" was a 
term of reproach. In the limited education 
granted to girls in that period few had ever 
seen her. In the popular imagination, she was 
a Uving skeleton animated by imnatural views 
of the duties of wife and motherhood. Through 
her spectacles the world to her looked sour and 
discontented, and by her perversive views she 
added to its biUousness and dissatisfaction. 
The highly educated woman of the early part 
of the nineteenth century in village and rural 
communities carefully concealed her accom- 
pUshments. If known, she was to her genera- 
tion what the witch was to her Puritan grand- 
father. 
The colleges for girls have been made possible 

[45] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

by endowment, legacies and gifts from indi- 
viduals. Many reformers are now strenuously 
opposed to the acceptance of large sums by 
old institutions of learning or permission for 
the creation and endowment of new ones by 
people of large wealth. They claim that the 
donors control the education of youth according 
to their ideas, which are generally reactionary 
and hostile to progressive development. This 
movement is bom of ignorance and prejudice. 
Its sponsors have become so saturated with the 
baleful words "interests and privilege" that 
they see in everything the influence and ulti- 
mate triumph of ''interests and privilege," 
meaning that a few favored citizens will receive 
benefits or powers dangerous to the public and 
denied to others. 

I was a Regent of the University of the State 
of New York for thirty-four years, and for 
twelve years a member of the Corporation of 
Yale. I made a study of State and endowed 
colleges. There is no endowed college with 
whose instruction or instructors or its traditional 
spirit, its benefectors have either voice or in- 
fluence. The benefactor dies, but the income 
from his gift goes on with the college forever. 
His generosity in its beneficence is a memorial 
which hves long after all else about him is 
buried with his bones. Yale, Harvard, Prince- 
ton and Columbia retain the ideals which are 
the inspiration of their students and alumni. 

[46] 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

Professor Sumner taught successive generations 
of Yale students the most advanced free trade 
doctrines. His genius and impressiveness as a 
teacher converted thousands of them. Con- 
necticut was one of the strongest of protection 
States, and if Yale had been a State university 
Sumner would have been dismissed. The 
largest donors to Yale during Professor Sum- 
ner's career were protectionists and opposed 
to Sumner's teaching, but they had no voice, 
and there was never a thought of disturbing 
him. The same is true with the German pro- 
fessors at Harvard and Columbia now. But 
with State universities there is always a panic 
when the State administration changes in 
politics. The situation to-day in the Univer- 
sity of Utah, with part of its professors ar- 
bitrarily dismissed and most of the others re- 
signing, and conditions in the University of 
Wisconsin are current examples. When ad- 
dressing State universities, the Faculty have 
told me, "Our academic independence is always 
in peril. We are dependent for our income on 
annual appropriations by the Legislature and 
the party in power for the moment starves us, 
if it disapproves our general policy or the views 
of probably our most distinguished professors. 
We have to maintain a lobby at the Capitol 
and the lobbyist is the most useful member of 
our Faculty." 

The centenary which ought to have touched 
[47] 



ON THE THEESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

US New Yorkers with more sentiment than any 
of the others of this remarkable year is the 
one which closed the three hundredth year of 
chartered commerce in New York. It passed 
with little public notice from our citizens. 
Three hundred years in the origin and growth 
of an American city is an event and an epoch. 
It antedates the landing of the Pilgrims on 
Plymouth Rock, which has inspired the best 
brains of the country and filled the Ubraries 
with history, eloquence and poetry. And yet 
this small spot of earth has nearly as large 
population, wealth, business, children in the 
schools, and more students in its colleges than 
all the New England States together. The 
careful New Englander has so nourished and 
celebrated his traditions that they are the 
teachings of our schools and the hterature of 
our homes. The careless New Yorker beheves 
that the location of his city, its superb harbor, 
the unequaled gifts which nature has bestowed 
upon it have so assured its pre-eminence that 
neither effort nor civic pride is required from 
him. This town pays forty per cent, of the 
income tax, collects sixty per cent, of the rev- 
enues of the United States, is the greatest 
manufacturing city in the country, with more 
capital and labor employed. Its art collections 
rank with the best in the world. Twenty-five 
thousand students crowd its professional, tech- 
nological and art schools. On the map of the 

[48] 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

United States it is a speck requiring a micro- 
scope to discover, and yet in all that constitutes 
a great commonwealth it surpasses nineteen 
sovereign States of our Union. It has centered 
upon it the animosity or rather vindictive 
jealousy of the country, increasing in intensity 
according to distance. This feeling produced 
an income tax so framed as to relieve the con- 
stituents of its authors and put as much as 
possible the burden on New York. It manipu- 
lated the new banking system to take away 
our natural advantages as a financial center, 
and discovers that the laws of trade are higher 
than statutes of Congress. The statesmen who 
thus thought they had distributed money and 
credit regardless of conditions or needs find 
that, while thinking they had forever buried 
their pet horror, a Central Bank, have really 
created one of the strongest and most efficient 
in the world. In other lands and ages, on the 
spot where this municipal marvel began, would 
be erected a monument rivaling the wonders 
of the world, but instead the city slumbers and 
individual enterprise rears on the site of the 
log hut, which was the trading post of three 
hundred years ago at 39 Broadway, a sky- 
scraper whose fifty-odd stories rise above the 
architectural wonders of ancient and modem 
times. 

A conversation which I enjoyed with a group 
of gentlemen in Congress who were enthusiasts 
[49] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

over the passage of the income tax measure 
and most optunistic of its results revealed a 
curious mixture of altruism and opportunism 
in the mind of statesmen. I said: ''I agree 
with you that an income tax is fair because it 
imposes the support of government upon all 
according to their incomes. We all agree that 
every citizen who contributes ever so Uttle 
towards carrying on the government is inter- 
ested and watchful and that promotes better 
administration. Why then have you framed 
this bill to reach only a small proportion of 
the people, so small that they can have little 
influence? There are a hundred million people 
in this country. You have put the exemption 
from the tax so high that only 357,598, or less 
than one-half of one per cent., are called upon 
to pay." The answer was prompt. ''If we 
included the rest or any large number of them 
we could never return here." 

But the concentration of centenaries in this 
year of events which are writ large in the his- 
tory of the world are not its only distinctions. 
It has an immediate and vital interest to us in 
the culmination of efforts for larger powers in 
the government over the activities of the in- 
dividual to reverse the rules which have pre- 
vailed since the founding of the Republic, in 
order to bring about a social and industrial 
paradise known according to its authors under 
various titles as the new freedom, social jus- 

[50] 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

tice, the uplift or progress. That it is new is 
not doubted, but whether it is freedom or 
uphft social justice or progress is debatable. 
Years ago, in early studies of our development, 
I came to the conclusion that it is due, more 
than to anything else, to the principle laid 
down by the Pilgrims in their charter framed 
in the cabin of the Mayflower to form a gov- 
ernment of "just and equal laws." This has 
been crystalized in our constitutions and laws, 
National and State, to make all equal before 
the law. It was a new idea of the relations of 
the people to their government. The auto- 
crat, the oligarch and the bureaucrat were 
abolished and the individual was left untram- 
meled to work out his career. Thomas Jeffer- 
son's maxim "that government is best which 
governs least" became and has continued until 
very recent years the settled policy of the 
United States. We developed on broad and 
virile lines to be a nation of pioneers. With 
the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and 
the Constitution of the United States as their 
libraries and instructors they carried the church 
and the schoolhouse with them into the wilder- 
ness. They founded and builded forty-eight 
commonwealths of the union with their mar- 
velous advance in all that makes prosperous 
and happy States. 

Every group has its leader. The experience 
of sixty years of active work over a large and 
[511 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

varied field has taught me that progress never 
originates nor is systematically carried on by 
the mass. It always has its inception and de- 
velopment in the individual. In older civiU- 
zations the death of the leader was either fatal 
or his power was inherited by a bureaucracy 
which sooner or later failed. But under our 
system of devolving responsibility upon the 
individual the leader of supreme abiUty is sur- 
rounded with capable and independent under- 
studies who can take up and carry on the work. 
The creative influence of Washington and Lin- 
coln is not questioned. The ideas of Hamilton 
and Jefferson have dominated our great parties 
and moulded our national policies. Jackson's 
leadership was so masterful that in rage at a 
financier he was able to change the financial 
system of the country. Though ignorant of 
either the principles or practice of banking, he 
forced the adoption of a system which was a 
perennial peril to our credit and involved us 
in disastrous panics in spite of our development. 
His dead hand held our financial poUcy, our 
banks, our currency by the throat for over half 
a century, and until partially released last year. 
Congress for two years has been in continuous 
session at the demand and to register the de- 
crees of President Wilson because for the first 
time in a generation the Democratic Party has 
a leader. 

Union labor, after many organizations and 

[521 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

reorganizations, has, under the intelligent and 
masterful leadership of Samuel Gompers, se- 
cured a Department in the Government, a 
Cabinet Minister, and enacts or defeats legisla- 
tion as it wills. It requires no effort of the 
imagination to see in this most savage and 
destructive war of all time the influence of Fred- 
erick the Great and Jean Jacques Rousseau, 
of Napoleon and Bismarck, of Nietzsche and 
Gladstone. In other fields are still Loyola and 
Luther, Wesley and Wilberf orce. The same rule 
prevails in material affairs in the great Captains 
of Industry who have revolutionized trade and 
commerce, transportation and manufactures, 
and in hterature and the pulpit. JournaHsm 
and the law give their unbroken and unani- 
mous testimony to gifts which sway multitudes 
and leave indeUble impressions upon the times. 
The new idea is to reverse the laws of nature 
by acts of Congress. It repudiates the old 
system of the "equaUty of all men before the 
law," and seeks to secure the equahty of all 
despite differences in character, ability, initia- 
tion, energy, industry and thrift. It tries to do 
away with competition, because under competi- 
tive conditions the best man wins, and then to so 
control competition which does survive that the 
lame and the lazy may divide with the strong, 
capable and sober. A national commission of 
well-meaning gentlemen to whom business is a 
mystery are given unlimited power over business 
[531 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

to help the weak and check the strong. The 
wise, experienced and able management of the 
railroads of the country is as necessary to the 
public as to the corporations, and yet another 
law when it goes into effect, if it is enforced 
according to its letter and spirit, will make it 
impossible for any one who has demonstrated 
his judgment and abihty by accumulating prop- 
erty to be a director of a railroad company. The 
Hotel de Gink is to be our industrial university 
and the hobo our ideal of efficiency. 

The statesmen who enact these grotesque 
laws are men of brains, conscience and patriot- 
ism. They have not been in contact with busi- 
ness, big or little, and spurn the lessons of 
experience. They beUeve that the faults or 
evils which are found in the transaction of 
business are to be remedied by unhatched 
theories. Nothing disturbs their cocksuredness. 
Up to forty I thought that a sign of strength and 
wisdom. At eighty-one I doubt. A study of the 
lives of the men in Congress and in every 
department of the government who are most 
active in these experiments, of the size, im- 
portance and industries of the places where they 
reside, of their contact with business, or of their 
opportunities to know practically its needs, is 
most instructive. Three members of Congress, 
who more than any others are the authors of 
legislation regulating business, hail from rural 
towns whose peaceful and primitive slumbers 

[54] 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

have not been disturbed by factories and whose 
joint populations are 20,000. An industrial 
commission is trying to find out the causes of the 
present unrest, unemployment and timidity of 
capital to invest in new enterprises or the ex- 
pansion of old ones. It requires no investigation 
to discover that the business experience and 
success of the country are on one side but with- 
out power, and the theorists are on the other 
side clothed with all the might, majesty and 
authority of the United States. 

The characteristic of our people is their 
abihty for quickly adjusting themselves to 
conditions. Give them the rules of the game and 
they will speedily learn to play it. This faculty 
is an inheritance from the men and women who 
settled the wilderness and subdued it, who out of 
hostile surroundings built up prosperous States. 
They have never more clearly demonstrated 
these qualities than at present. The resistless 
energy, the progressive individualism, the in- 
vincible optimism of the American people is 
rescuing business from its official handicaps and 
promoting prosperity. 

It is a significant development of the twen- 
tieth century that men who by supremely grasp- 
ing the opportunities of the nineteenth and 
twentieth have accumulated great wealth are 
devoting it to public uses, instead of the old idea 
of founding a family. The almost incredible 
sum of six hundred millions of dollars has 

[551 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

already been so donated by John D. Rockefeller 
and Ajidrew Carnegie. But another phenom- 
enon of the times is that these gifts and the 
schemes to perpetuate them have aroused bitter 
criticism and fierce opposition. The Rockefeller 
Foundation saved Wellesley College after its 
disastrous fire, gave Yale the help required in 
completing a great medical school, sent a million 
dollars' worth of food to Belgium, when other 
sources were inadequate to save the starving 
milhons of that unfortunate country. Its con- 
tributions organized boys' clubs on the farms 
and has increased them from nothing a short 
time ago to 10,343 in 1908, and they had grown 
in 1913 to 91,000. They are necessarily under 
the control of the Department of Agriculture, 
which pays the organizers and instructors one 
dollar a year, and all the rest of the expenses is 
borne by the Foundation. Similar conditions 
exist in the fight against the Boll Weevil. 
These clubs, under competent teachers, are 
raising on their httle tracts three times as much 
corn and wheat as their fathers on the same 
farms. The Foundation has furnished the funds 
to investigate and stamp out the curse pellagra 
and save the cotton crop from the Boll Weevil. 
Yet, a United States Senator stirred that august 
body and won popularity among great masses of 
people by declaring that he would see the cotton 
plants destroyed and the industry ruined rather 
than they should be saved by the money of this 

[56] 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

Foundation. God would provide, he said, other 
means of Uving for these unfortunate miUions 
of farmers and give them substitutes for cotton. 
I say it reverently, God leaves to his people the 
largest hberty in making their careers and con- 
ducting their affairs. The fool reaps the fruit 
of his follies and sadly learns by experience that 
no supernatural power reverses the rules of 
production or the laws of trade. The trouble 
with the interpreters of the Almighty is that 
they are densely ignorant of the Divine pur- 
poses. The fooUsh virgins cry to Heaven for 
oil and none drops, while the wise ones have a 
torchhght procession to the wedding feast. 

Our ancestors knew all about tyranny and 
determined to found a government in which 
their descendants would be forever free. The 
tyrant, the dictator, the mob and the majority 
are equally ruthless of human rights if they check 
their desires or ambitions. So for the j&rst time 
in government these inspired men of the Revolu- 
tion imposed limitations upon themselves. 
They placed constitutional barriers around 
"hfe, hberty and the pursuit of happiness" 
which neither the Presidents nor Congress, nor 
the courts nor all combined could overstep. It is 
these safeguards which impatient reformers so 
vigorously and viciously assail to be themselves 
ultimately victims of hcense if they should suc- 
ceed. I recognize the usefulness of extreme 
radicaUsm. While it would bring on anarchy 

[57] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

or revolution, if unchecked, yet the violence of 
its advocacy moves the mass slowly to a sane 
and safe realization of its best objects. I read 
the most radical journals, but while fiery, they 
are dull. They discuss brilliantly all the prob- 
lems of the day, but wind up each article with 
their remedy as the panacea for all the ills of 
society and government. They are much like 
the able essay or charming story which ends by 
recommending a patent medicine. Even in 
climbing Parnassus Pegasus cannot get out of 
the rut and runs around the base of the 
mountain. Either in exclusive and intense con- 
centration on one subject, the mind loses its 
grasp and enjoyment of all questions or the 
advocates believe that constant dropping wears 
away the stone. Perhaps it may, but it pro- 
motes sleep. 

It is a gift of healthy old age that you cease 
to be alarmed or worried. My philosophic 
friend, who had made and lost several fortunes, 
put his hat on the back of his head when down 
on his luck and cheerfully remarked, "The world 
always has gone around, and I believe it will 
keep going around." Galileo, when bored by the 
sermon, looked up at the chandelier and saw it 
swing backwards and forwards with the move- 
ment of the earth. This suggested to him the 
pendulum and the law of gravitation and the 
mathematical accuracy of the movements of the 
sun, moon and stars. The pendulum is on its 

[581 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

return swing. Politicians are discovering it. 
Progressives and stand patters are joining in the 
chorus of the brotherhood of man and there is 
hamiony in the choir. Finding that distress 
both with capital and labor has followed and 
industrial paralysis resulted from their hilarious 
crusade against business, they are eagerly assur- 
ing business that the Industrial Commission is 
to put the government behind business as soon 
as it is informed how it can help, and that they 
have happily discovered that strangulation is 
not the mission of regulation. Mr. Lincoln, in 
telUng me in his quizzical way of some of his 
troubles, said, *'I have a friend quite as able as 
I am, but everything has always been against 
him. He is a failure and very poor. When I 
became President I decided that among my 
first acts would be to reverse the bad fortune of 
my friend. I said to him, I will give you the 
marshalship of the District of Columbia. The 
salary is ample and I want you near me. He 
refused and demanded Minister to Brazil. I 
told him that position had been given to General 
Webb; that he knew nothing of Brazil and was 
not fit or equipped for the position. What you 
require, I said to him, for your family and future 
is money, and you can have the place of naval 
officer in the New York Custom House, which is 
an honorable position and will make you in- 
dependent for hfe beyond yoiu* wildest dreams." 
He said, ''If our positions were reversed I 

[59] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

would give you anything you asked, and if I am 
denied Brazil I will take nothing. " It is amazing 
how large a class that man represents. Eugenics 
is a good thing, but its advocates reach an 
extreme which threatens a setback for their 
efforts when among the bills its professors are 
pressing in a legislature is one that all knock- 
kneed men shall be compelled to marry bow- 
legged women. 

The peril of old age is the general acceptance 
of its excuses. Youth and middle hfe are held 
to strict accountabihty for laziness, intemper- 
ance, neglect, indifference or any failure to 
meet the requirements of personal health or 
duty of society. But the septuagenarian or still 
more the octogenarian finds friends who tell him 
that exertion depletes his vitahty. Work 
exhausts his strength and whiskey is a tonic for 
failing powers. If he succumbs to the voice of 
the siren feebleness, decay and death are charged 
to age. Martin Luther simmied up the philos- 
ophy of healthy and vigorous age in five memor- 
able words, ''when I rest I rust." 

A few days ago was the fiftieth anniversary of 
Appomattox. Those of us who were in full vigor 
on that eventful ninth of April, 1865, can never 
forget the effect of the announcement of the 
surrender of General Lee and his army, the gen- 
erous terms conceded by General Grant and the 
end of Civil War. Stanton, Secretary of War; 
Senator Wade and Thaddeus Stevens, represent- 
[601 



TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

ing the radicals, demanded the repudiation of 
Grant's agreement with Lee and vindictive 
punishment of Confederate soldiers and states- 
men. Only the prestige of Grant and the pohcy 
of Lincoln prevented guerilla war for a genera- 
tion. General Grant's cry ''let us have peace" 
rang through the land as few utterances ever 
have. With slavery, the cause of the war, 
aboUshed, after a few rash experiments of 
military control, the seceded States were wel- 
comed to all the rights under the Constitution 
and the Union enjoyed by their victorious 
brethren. On Decoration Day the Blue and the 
Gray intermingle the flowers strewn upon the 
graves of their heroes, and peace and prosperity 
have united North and South, East and West. 

The victory at Sedan accomplished the object 
of the war which was the federation of the 
German States into the German Empire. 
France was only a means to the end. But the 
conqueror declared, "I will bleed France 
white." For forty-four years the patriots of 
Alsace and Lorraine have been ruthlessly 
punished for aspirations expressed in action or 
speech to be reunited to their country with the 
usual legacy of hatred, and the annual visit of 
the tax collector to gather the huge sums from 
the people of the French Republic necessary to 
meet the interest on the five thousand milhon of 
francs exacted as an indemnity from France has 
kept brightly burning the fires of revenge. This 
[61] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

terrible war must end by exhaustion. Excessive 
and challenging militarism made the conflict. 
The peace of the worid for the future depends 
upon the nations substituting arbitration for 
militarism and heeding in the terms of settle- 
ment exacted and accepted the lesson of 
Appomattox rather than Sedan. 



[62] 



Speech at the Dinner Given to Mr. Depew by 
his Railroad Associates in Honor of his 
Eightieth Birthday at the University Club, 
New York, May 5, 1914. 

Mr. Chairman and Friends: 

All the celebrations which have been given in 
honor of my eightieth birthday have been most 
gratifying. Each one had its own peculiar sig- 
nificance, but this tonight from you, gentlemen, 
differs widely from the rest. There is an in- 
timacy, brotherhood, both of time and condi- 
tions, which rarely exist. 

I became connected with our New York 
Central Company forty-eight years ago. Jan- 
uary, 1916, rounds out my half century. There 
is no one living in any capacity who was in the 
service of the Company when 1 began. There is 
no executive officer of any railroad in the 
United States who is still active, who was one 
when I became President thirty years ago. All 
these are distinctions. It is hard to define 
precisely what constitutes a distinction. 
Methuselah was the oldest man who ever hved 
and that was his distinction. He might have 
claimed and probably did that his age was due 
to a well-spent life. The man who set fire to 
the Temple of Ephesus, at that time the 
[63] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

architectural wonder of the world, accompUshed 
his purpose which was to immortalize his name. 

It is idle to emmierate examples, when there 
are so many among poets and historians, con- 
querors and philosophers, philanthropists and 
inventors, boy prodigies and old age wonders. 
Nevertheless, it is a distinction to be the longest 
of your hne in any profession, pursuit or voca- 
tion, because there are many competitors and 
there is always a "bomb" with the fuse lighted 
under your official chair. 

There is one word frequently used whose sig- 
nificance has never been properly understood 
and appreciated. That word is "association." 
It has no limit in confidential relations or time. 
It is difficult, after the lapse of so many years, 
after the crossing over to the other side of such a 
vast majority of your associates, after recalling 
their merits, their virtues, their good works, 
your love for them and their loyalty to you, to 
speak of the past without almost uncontrollable 
emotion. My pohcy and practice during all 
these years have been one of confidence and 
intimacy with all my associates in every grade of 
the service. I think, when active in the operation 
of the Company, I had a wider personal ac- 
quaintance with the thousands who were con- 
nected with the corporation than anybody. 
This was because my habit of speaking at the 
anniversaries and celebrations of the different 
Orders in the railway service, led to familiar 

[64] 



RAILROAD associates' DINNER 

acquaintance with locomotive engineers, fire- 
men, conductors, brakemen and those in the 
shops, in the yards and on the track. I may say, 
always beheving in the virtue of reciprocity, I 
have never in my long career had my confidence 
abused. 

To have been in close and active participa- 
tion with the railway development of the last 
half century is in itself a life of extraordinary 
education and opportunity. To have had in a 
large measure the confidence of those great con- 
structive minds who were the pioneers in the 
creation of this network of rails which has 
developed our country and made it what it is, 
was a rare privilege. 

The attorney and counsel in my early days 
saw much of the president. He was generally a 
part of the executive staff, always on the car in 
the tours of inspection, always present at the 
frequent meetings, so difficult, so controversial, 
with the executives of rival corporations and 
always present when difficult questions in any of 
the departments had reached the executive for 
decision. When I became President, on account 
of this training, the operating department, the 
freight and passenger departments were to me as 
if I had been trained in each and all. And yet 
one of the most interesting of my duties was to 
stand between the public and the Company 
when hostility to the railroads was most acute. 
Agitators fanned this feeling into a flame, and 

[65] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

the press generally, and Chambers of Commerce 
and Boards of Trade were most unfriendly. 
Hostile legislation threatened both the efficiency 
and solvency of the railways. I recall as one 
of the most satisfactory of the events of the part 
I had in settling those troubles, removing an- 
tagonism and estabhshing harmonious relations 
between the people and the railroads. The most 
striking proof of this change from bitter enmity 
to cordial friendship was when the delegates 
from the State of New York to the National 
Republican Convention in 1888 unanimously 
presented me as their candidate for President of 
the United States. Those shrewd, able and 
wonderfully equipped men would never have 
advocated a candidate unless they firmly be- 
lieved he would have, at the election, the support 
of the people. 

It seems like the history of early times for me 
to stand before you and say that in my early 
days in the service Commodore Vanderbilt had 
the Hudson River and Harlem and afterwards, 
as you know, the New York Central and Lake 
Shore; Colonel Scott the Pennsylvania and 
John W. Garrett the Baltimore and Ohio. 
These men were giants in their day and of 
extraordinary genius for affairs. As an at- 
torney I saw Commodore Vanderbilt every day 
at his office, in his house, during the last ten 
years of his life. I had, or prior to that time, 
been twice a Member of the Legislature and 

[66] 



RAILROAD ASSOCIATES DINNER 

Secretary of State of New York. I had come 
in close contact with President Lincoln, General 
Grant, General Sherman, General Sheridan and 
all pubhc men of that wonderful period of 
original and distinguished captains. It had 
made me a student, deeply interested in the 
mental qualities and characteristics which had 
made these men great. I came to the con- 
clusion that the quality of greatness can neither 
be analyzed nor defined. 

I have often found what would be a weakness 
in an ordinary man is the principal element of 
power in a great one. Commodore Vanderbilt 
was an enigma to his closest associates. How he 
arrived at conclusions they could not tell. They 
could only wonder that his conclusions were 
almost invariably correct and his decisions 
rendered almost immediately after the question 
was given. Some called it intuition, some luck. 
There was much of the former and very little 
of the latter. That the Commodore went from 
the steamboat to the steamship, in both of which 
he had been a leader, for the railroad, in which 
he became the leader, leaving the one and 
entering the other, at the right time in the in- 
dustrial development of the country, was neither 
luck nor intuition, but marvelous perception of 
conditions, accuracy of judgment and resistless 
quickness in following judgment by action. It 
would take all night to recall and differentiate 
those leaders in the other systems. 

[671 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

A few of our own people. Most of you can 
remember Tousey, our General Manager. He 
was a capital officer who, like most of those 
who had come up from the ranks, had no use for 
the products of the schools. When we needed a 
superintendent, he said to one of the candidates, 
*' Are you a graduate of the Troy Polytechnic, of 
the Stevens or the Massachusetts Tech? " "No," 
said the candidate. "What is your career? " "I 
began as a telegraph operator, then assistant 
to the division superintendent, then division 
superintendent, then general superintendent." 
"That's enough," said Tousey, "you are ap- 
pointed." 

One of the original characters was Major 
Zenus Priest, who was for fifty years, most of the 
time as division superintendent, with our 
Company. He always joined me in my repeated 
trips over the line. He was an excellent officer, 
kept his division in good condition, got along 
well with his men but always predicted a strike 
before I came over the road again. It was a 
time when the railway men were forming new 
labor organizations, and old Major Priest 
thought every new organization was a nucleus 
of a strike. 

Another superintendent long with us was 
Burroughs, an original man who said very little, 
except to himself, with whom he was always 
talking. I remember going over the line with him 
on the pony engine, and I will say for those of my 

[681 



RAILROAD ASSOCIATES DINNER 

friends here who are not famiUar with that 
machine that it is a cabin built over the boiler 
of the locomotive, with chairs on each side, so 
that you can sit in front and watch the track 
as the locomotive speeds along. Burroughs 
would sit on one side looking out. I, as President, 
on the other. Burroughs talking to himself 
would comment on the track, roadbed, grading, 
rails and say what he would do by way of com- 
pliment or punishment to the man in charge. 
On one trip, without changing voice, Burroughs 
said, ''That switch is open, — in less than a 
minute we will be in hell." The locomotive 
jumped the switch and landed on the track 
all right, and the next comment was, "That 
switchman is discharged." 

The most remarkable revolution in the last 
fifty years has been the relations between gov- 
ernment. National and State, and the railroads. 
As a new country we wanted railroads, and 
settlements, farms, villages and cities followed 
along the lines of their construction. Building 
them was a huge gamble for the promoters. 
Some paid largely, some after years of struggle 
yielded a small return, while many went bank- 
rupt and through several reorganizations ruined 
the original and succeeding investors. 

A railroad never goes out of business, its rails 
are not torn up. It becomes indispensable to the 
communities it has created or made prosperous. 
And so making no returns to those who have put 

[691 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

their money into it as stockholders or loaned it 
their savings as bondholders and sometimes not 
even earning taxes, it continues to run under the 
Court and through a receiver. But the time 
came in railway development when government 
regulation was indispensable. The success of 
the Massachusetts Railroad Commission, which 
was purely advisory, impressed the country. 
As an attorney, I opposed the movement at first, 
but soon became convinced that regulation was 
a necessity for the public, the shippers, railroad 
investment and operations. 

William H. Vanderbilt was then President as 
well as the owner of a majority of the stock of the 
New York Central Railroad. He was a broad- 
minded man of great ability, but handicapped to 
a certain extent, as many an exceedingly capable 
son has been, by the fame of his father. After 
careful consideration he accepted that view and 
welcomed the Commission. The first idea of the 
Railroad Commissioners was that to secure equi- 
table rates they must encourage cut-throat 
competition. They soon learned that this policy 
bankrupted weaker lines and also business in the 
territory which they served. These lines could 
not give their people a service which would 
enable them to compete with their more for- 
tunate competitors on the stronger lines. The 
true principle of transportation was ultimately 
solved, that is equal rates to all and reasonable 
i rates which will provide for maintenance and 

[ 70 1 



RAILROAD ASSOCIATES DINNER 

improvements and a fair retm^n to the investors. 
But the rapid evolution of railway control has 
produced unexpected results. It has given us 
in the Inter State Commerce Commission the 
most powerful bureau in the countiy. 

There are nearly two millions on the pay- 
rolls of the railroads, and with their families 
they number ten millions or one-tenth of the 
population of the country. There are nearly as 
many dependent largely on the railroads in the 
coal and iron mines, the steel rail mills and the 
manufacture of railway supplies. There are ten 
million depositors in the savings banks, and the 
largest investment of those banks is in railroad 
securities. So here are nearly two- thirds of the 
people directly or indirectly dependent upon the 
prosperity of the railroads, and the railroads 
entirely dependent for their prosperity and 
efficiency upon the Inter State Commerce Com- 
mission. The situation is without a parallel. 
The responsibility is paralyzing. The Commis- 
sion has far more power than the Supreme Court 
of the United States. It more intimately affects 
the family and the home. It should have equal 
dignity in extended terms of offices and in salaries 
to attract the greatest ability and independence. 

The following statistics are eloquent of the 
situation: 

Of earnings of the railroads of the United States 
in 1913 

[71] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

amounting to $3,118,929,318 

there was paid to employees 1,439,000,000 

for taxes 129,052,922 

for materials and supplies 320,823,000 

in dividends 217,000,000 

in interest or indebtedness 407,000,000 

Reduced to percentages they exhibit this 
remarkable result: 

Percentage from gross earnings paid to 

employees 44.00 

Percentage from gross earnings paid for 

materials and supplies 23.10 

Percentage from gross earnings paid for 

interest 13.04 

Percentage from gross earnings paid for 

taxes 4.14 

Percentage from gross earnings paid for 

dividends 4.09 

Railway management is a profession requiring 
study, preparation, training, practical experi- 
ence and high abilities. The government in the 
Inter State Commerce Commission should be 
able by reason of the honor and permanence of 
the position to attract to tliis service the most 
tried, proved and expert talent and character 
there is among the people. 

There is no vocation where there is so much 
camaraderie and good fellowship as among rail- 
road men. We have a difficult task to perform, 
the most difficult of any profession. The whole 
[721 



RAILROAD associates' DINNER 

public uses the instrumentalities which we 
control, manage and work. Therefore, we have 
to satisfy the public of the United States, and 
at the same time satisfy the investors. This re- 
quires an unusual degree of character, intelli- 
gence, experience and devotion to duty. It is a 
tribute to the two million men who are engaged 
in the railway service that so few drop out by 
the way, so few render themselves liable to the 
criminal courts or the adverse judgment of 
superior officers in the discharge of the difficult 
functions, which in every branch they are called 
upon to perform. There is and always has been 
in our Central System an unusual degree of 
brotherhood. 

When I entered service the Central System 
consisted of the Harlem railroad, running from 
New York to Chatham, one hundred and 
twenty-eight miles. To-day it has twenty 
thousand miles and is, if you take into con- 
sideration all that it is and does, probably the 
most important railway system in the world. 
It is a wonderful and grateful experience to have 
been so closely associated in the same company 
with the men, distinguished for their ability and 
achievements, who have come and gone in these 
last fifty years and to find myself in cordial in- 
timacy and almost as one of the youngest among 
those who are still active. 

Commodore Vanderbilt said to me one morn- 
ing over forty years ago, not long before he died: 

[731 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

"I would like, if I could be assured, that some 
Vanderbilt would be in the management of the 
New York Central road for many generations to 
come, but I do not hope that the Vanderbilt in- 
fluence will extend beyond the sons of my son 
William H." If in the other world those who 
have passed the Great Divide are conscious 
of what is happening here, as I believe they are, 
then the Commodore must be pleased when he 
sees and knows that in the official ranks of the 
New York Central are two Vanderbilts of a still 
younger generation, William K., jr., and 
Harold, both efficient, both able, both promising, 
both with long lives of usefulness before them, 
and I am glad that we can welcome them among 
us here to-night. 

My friends, four-score years seem wonderful 
in prospect. I remember when I thought that 
forty was old, when fifty ought to be the time 
to retire, when sixty was past consideration. 
But when one has passed that great climacteric 
of eighty, then the past seems to have been a 
preparation for the future, and the future he 
looks forward to with hopefulness, optimism, 
thanks and profound appreciation of the greet- 
ings, the welcome, the hail and hope which you 
give. I thank you, gentlemen. 



741 



Speech at a Reception Given by the Union 
League Club of New York in Honor of 
Mr. Depew'8 Eightieth Birthday on May 8, 
1914. 

(The reception at the Union League Club in 
honor of Mr. Depew's eightieth year was one of 
the largest in the history of the Club. 

Samuel W. Fairchild, the President, was in 
the chair. Speeches were made by former Presi- 
dents of the Club, General Horace Porter and 
George R. Sheldon, and also by William D. 
Guthrie, George T. Wilson and WilHam D. 
Murphy. The venerable General Benjamin F. 
Tracy, who was Secretary of the Navy in the 
Cabinet of President Harrison, gave interesting 
reminiscences and among them said that as a 
member of President Harrison's official family, 
he knew that the President had twice invited 
Mr. Depew to become a member of his Cabinet, 
the last time as Secretary of State.) 

Mr. President and Fellow-Members of the Union 
League Club: 

It is most thoughtful of you and grateful to me 
that you thus celebrate my eightieth birthday. 
To have rounded out and passed the fateful four- 
score is an achievement, if accomplished with 
the retention of unimpaired health and vigor. 

[75] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

It starts one hopefully on the last lap, but one, 
for the century mark. 

So many friends and organizations are paying 
me this compliment that it is impossible for 
more than one to have their celebration on the 
natal day. The result is that my birthdays 
have been celebrated so often on different dates 
this year, that I have almost lost recollection 
of the ''real" day. I am afraid that I maj'' be 
like St. Patrick in this respect. That revered 
Saint had among his followers certain partisans 
who claimed that he was born on the 6th of 
March and others who insisted upon the 11th. 
Peace was finally restored by combining the two, 
so that now we all especially revere St. Patrick 
on the 17th of March. 

I have been forty-six years a member of this 
Club and seven times its President, a record as 
to the Presidency which I may say, at my time 
of Ufe and reminiscently, has not been equalled 
in successive terms of service by any other of 
the distinguished gentlemen who have filled 
this great office. 

To have belonged to the Union League Club 
and been active in its affairs for nearly half a 
century is to have been brought in contact with 
the most evolutionary and beneficial history of 
the United States, of the State and City of New 
York, and with the eminent men who made that 
history. There are very few members of the 
Club who are familiar with its origin and who 

[76 1 



UNION LEAGUE CLUB RECEPTION 

can go back successfully in memory to the times 
of the Civil War when this Club was organized. 
It may not be inappropriate to present a picture 
of our inspiring beginnings. The Union League 
Club grew out of the United States Sanitary 
Commission. At the time of the Civil War there 
were no agencies known to alleviate the suffer- 
ings of the wounded and to help the families of 
the killed, like the Red Cross of to-day. The 
United States Sanitary Commission filled that 
function in a remarkable way. It raised millions 
of dollars and through its branches all over the 
North furnished millions of dollars' worth of 
clothes and hospital supplies to the Union 
Armies. Its members in New York City felt 
that they needed a social home like a Club to 
increase the efficiency of their work. They 
were tireless laborers in collecting money and in 
forwarding supplies to the hospitals, to the 
field and to the soldiers' homes. 

In the debate over the selection of a name, 
they first chose "Loyal," then ''National," and 
finally decided upon The Union League. The 
only requirement, beyond character, was loyalty 
to the Union, regardless of party affiliations. It 
was meant to be a League of those who would 
devote themselves to the carrying out and per- 
fecting in government Webster's immortal 
phrase, ''Liberty and Union, One and In- 
separable, Now and Forever." 

The first great work of the Club was to raise a 

[77] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY-TWO 

regiment of colored men. In a short time there 
were 1,020 enrolled in the first regiment and 600 
recruited for the second. New York, at that 
time, was a disloyal city. Its trade had been 
seriously injured. It doubted the success of the 
Union cause. A large majority were in favor 
of peace at any price, and it had emphasized its 
bitterness by killing negroes and burning the 
Negro Orphan Asylum. The threat was openly 
made that the regiment would never be per- 
mitted to march through the city. The wives of 
the members of the Club presented it with the 
regimental colors, and the members of the Club, 
in a body, accompanied by their wives, marched 
at the head of the regiment to the pier, where 
they embarked for the field. That event, 
witnessed not only by the citizens of the city 
but by thousands who came in from the country, 
changed pubUc sentiment, and, thereafter, the 
Club raised two more regiments and also three 
regiments of white soldiers. 

The first public reception, which has been fol- 
lowed by so many other memorable ones, was 
given to that splendid soldier and magnificent 
looking specimen of a man. General Winfield 
Scott Hancock, who had come to New York to 
recruit the second corps of the Army of the 
Potomac. The Club raised for him two hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars and through its direct 
efforts three thousand men. 

It may be well to record here that there were, 

[781 



UNION LEAGUE CLUB RECEPTION 

at that time, in the City of New York, six thou- 
sand negroes capable of mihtary duty, and of 
that number three regiments of one thousand 
were raised, armed and equipped by the Club 
and one thousand volunteers in other organiza- 
tions. In proportion to their number, a splendid 
evidence of their loyalty and patriotism. 

A feature of the Club life has been the recep- 
tions which followed that to General Hancock 
in 1864. I remember well the one tendered to 
General Grant, the year after the close of the 
War. He was far way the most distinguished 
figure in American public life. He had won 
sixty-three battles and ended the Civil War at 
Appomattox. The enthusiasm was boundless, 
but the hero of the occasion modest, embarrassed 
and speechless. When he returned to New 
York, after his presidency, to reside, he was the 
honored guest at all of our public banquets. I 
came in late to one of these, while the General 
was painfully trying to speak. He stopped and 
said, ''If I could stand in Chauncey Depew's 
shoes and he in mine, I'd be happy instead of a 
miserable man to-night." It furnished me an 
opportunity, speaking later, to dwell upon who 
could ever stand in Grant's shoes. The General 
became subsequently an excellent public speaker 
and when he generously, after his defeat at 
Chicago, took the stump for the successful candi- 
date. General Garfield, his addresses were most 
effective. 

1791 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

We have received every President, with the 
exception of Cleveland, and each occasion was 
memorable, because each of these Chief Magis- 
trates recognized that in his own nomination and 
election this Club had rendered most valuable 
and effective support. The most genial of Presi- 
dents, Mr. McKinley, loved beyond all the 
receptions given him in various parts of the 
country the cordiality and enthusiasm, the 
friendship and brotherhness with which he was 
treated here. Of course, the receptions to our 
member, Colonel Roosevelt and to President 
Taft are within all of your recollections. At the 
supper following the reception to Mr. Taft, I 
noticed that the elderly guests had serious 
limitations upon their ability to indulge in the 
feast. My own ability in that line being un- 
impaired, I called attention to the fact and 
derided them upon these evidences of "old 
days." Whereupon the always delightful and 
witty Choate convulsed the crowd by shouting, 
"Who is your plumber?" 

The distinction of our Club has been the 
public measures which it has advocated by 
resolutions and pamphlets. In stress and 
distress, financial and industrial, which followed 
the Civil War, there was an active effort in 
behalf of repudiation of the pubUc debt. It then 
amounted to about five thousand milhons of 
dollars and seemed intolerable. The Club's res- 
olutions formed the basis of opposition to this 

[80] 



UNION LEAGUE CLUB RECEPTION 

movement all over the country. Its clarion note 
was: ''America can admit no distinction between 
public and private faith and on questions of 
finance will follow her old rule of honesty as the 
only one worthy of the intelligence and dignity 
of a free people." The greenback had become a 
fetish, and patriotism and good finance seemed 
to be wedded to fiat money. But in the fight to 
defeat unsecured paper and the subsequent right 
to debase our currency with unlimited silver and 
the great final and crucial struggle for the 
gold basis, the Club was foremost of all organ- 
izations for national faith and honest money. 

There is necessarily a brief note of sadness in 
an occasion like this, but it does not impair the 
harmony of the occasion, but rather is in accord 
with it. It is the reminiscences of the good 
fellows, of the splendid characters, of the 
honest, old school and generous men who have 
departed. We mourn their loss as we rejoice 
that there came into our lives the inestimable 
privilege of knowing them in the intimacy of the 
family life of the Club. It is the alleviation of 
sorrow which makes it finally a blessing that it 
inspires with the mellowing of age recollections 
of all that was best and most lovable in those 
who have departed. 

Of the large membership of the Club, for it is 
one of the largest in the country, there are only 
twenty-five men living who were here when I 
became a member. 

[81] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

It is the special merit of our organization that 
it is one of the few which has been able to unite 
efficiency in public affairs with the highest 
development on the social side. No club, 
organized purely for social purposes, attracts 
within its walls such a large and frequent 
attendance of members. 

I feel that I cannot better close my tribute 
to the Club and my thanks to you than by 
narrating an incident concerning General Wash- 
ington, which I heard from the late Duke 
d'Aumale, one of the sons of Louis Philippe. 
The Duke said that his father, at the time of the 
revolution in France, was an exile in this 
country. He was a guest for a long time of 
General Washington at Mount Vernon. Louis 
Philippe said to the General one day, that in the 
course of his long career as a soldier, a states- 
man and President of the United States, there 
must occur to him many things which would 
have been better if he had done or said other- 
wise. To which General Washington answered, 
"I have never in my whole life done anything 
which I regret or said anything which I care to 
recall." The Duke said that often his father, 
then King of France, was urged to make declara- 
tions or to take positions and that his answer 
frequently was, "If I do that, I cannot say 
afterwards what General Washington said to 
me." 

So, my friends, in looking back over the 

[82] 



UNION LEAGUE CLUB RECEPTION 

history of our Club, from its organization until 
to-night, we can proudly say it never made a 
mistake. It never took any action which in the 
retrospect it regrets, and never in its public 
utterances has said anything which it wishes to 
recall. 



[83 



Address as Presiding Officer at the Meeting in 
the Building of the Railroad Branch, 
Young Men's Christian Association, on the 
Occasion of Closing the Old Building for 
Removal to the New, May 28, 1914. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

In the life of every beneficent association 
there are interesting periods. This is particular- 
ly so if the life has been one of growth and 
expansion. This organization, which started 
in a very small way thirty-five years ago, has 
now become one of the greatest agencies for good 
among the employees of the railways of the 
country. It has demonstrated its usefulness in 
so many ways that no one, either among the 
officers or the employees, has a word of criticism 
and only approval. 

Fifty-eight years ago I graduated from Yale 
and returned to my native village of Peekskill 
on the Hudson. Edward Wells, a distinguished 
lawyer of Westchester County, had in his offices 
a number of young men and conducted a fair law 
school. Mr. Wells was more than a good lawyer, 
he was an active citizen in the church, in politics, 
in local improvements and in eveiything which 
would benefit the community. The young men 
in the office decided, with others in the village, 
to form an association for mutual improvement 
[84] 



ADDRESS BEFORE Y. M. C. A. 

under the presidency of Mr. Wells. We met in 
the Sunday school room of the FirstPresbyterian 
Church. It was decided that each member 
should present a paper and then there would 
be general discussion of it and weekly meetings. 
I read the first paper, which was on Paul's 
sermon at Athens on Mars Hill. The paper led 
to an interesting discussion, and the meetings 
continued for about two years, when the associa- 
tion died. The cause of its demise was that its 
platform had only one plank, and that was too 
narrow for many to stand on. It appealed only 
to the intellectual side of the young men who 
became members. 

The success of the Young Men's Christian 
Association has demonstrated that young men 
must be appealed to on many sides and attrac- 
tions presented for their physical welfare, for the 
working off of surplus vitality, for social enjoy- 
ment and for physical comfort. In other words, 
to prepare a healthy body for a healthy soul and 
active mind. 

In 1858, the year that this Peekskill infant 
died, some very wise and far-sighted gentlemen 
formed a Young Men's Christian Association. 

This speedily grew and expanded, until now it 
is founded and appreciated in nearly every 
country in the world. It appealed to the best 
instincts of human nature, and especially during 
the period of growth and formation of character. 
Libraries could not describe the momentous re- 
[85] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

suits to society and the State which have come 
from the work of the Young Men's Christian 
Association. Its organization and career em- 
phatically confirm what has so often been 
demonstrated, that God raises up instrumen- 
talities to meet the requirements of crises in the 
affairs of men. 

It was about this time that there was stimu- 
lated the rush of the youth of the land from the 
country to the city which has continued with 
increasing volume ever since. The rapid growth 
of manufacturing enterprises and the attractive- 
ness of the larger opportunities of community life 
created industrial centers everywhere and added 
to the population of villages and cities. These 
young men were beset with perils of every kind. 
Liquor saloons increased in number and pool 
rooms abounded. The appetite for stimulants 
and gambling, always present, was abnormally 
excited. The loneliness of the country boy was 
his danger and his temptation. The saloon was 
a club, always inviting him. The more promis- 
ing the young man, the greater his attractions, 
the larger his capacity for friendship, the more 
all-embracing his nature in good will for others, 
the more he was liable to yield to those, who, 
because of his popularity, wanted his society. 
The saloon recognized that in him they had a 
lode-star to attract others. The anchorage of 
youth is the will. The village and the city, 
under these conditions, weakened the will and 

[861 



ADDRESS BEFORE Y. M. C. A. 

ruined the makings of a man. The Young Men's 
Christian Association offered to these young 
men counter attractions. It welcomed them to 
health, normal, mental and physical. It had its 
gymnasium and other methods of healthy 
exercise, it had its Hbrary, its lectures on useful 
topics, its educational branches fitting the un- 
trained for careers, it had its games and recre- 
ations, it had its baths, always demonstrating 
that "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." The 
business men of the country began to find out 
that there was in the membership of the Young 
Men's Christian Association insurance policies 
against dissipation, poor service and peculation. 
As an instance, I remember when I was on a 
Western trip over the roads of our system, re- 
ceiving an urgent request by wire to stop off at 
Rochester to address a meeting of business men 
on the question of the erection and equipment 
of a building for the Young Men's Christian 
Association. I had an important engagement 
in New York in the morning, but I accepted the 
invitation. I arranged to have a locomotive and 
a sleeping car immediately after the meeting 
and overtake my train so that I could arrive in 
New York on time. The meeting was a wonder- 
ful success. Among the audience were members 
of every church in the city, including many 
prominent Jews. The appeal I made was to 
them as business men for efficiency and honesty 
in their service. Sufficient funds were sub- 

[87] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

scribed that night for land and a building. I 
took my train very happy, but in the night 
found myself flying along the roof of the car and 
landing in the aisle with the car on one side. 
The negro porter, who laid along side of me, said, 
"Boss, we have struck something." Happily 
we were near Syracuse. An engine came to my 
assistance, I overtook my train and arrived at 
my meeting on time. I could not have been in 
the air, awakened from my sleep, more than a 
few seconds, but in that time this went through 
my head, '' I am in a railroad smash-up and in a 
minute more will be killed. The train on which 
I was will arrive in New York in safety, and if I 
had not gotten off to make that speech for the 
Y. M. C. A., I would not have been killed. 
What excuse will those young Christians offer 
to explain this tragedy to me?" I have been 
very happy ever since that such a difficult ques- 
tion was not put to them. 

Friends, these Associations, of which this 
Railroad Branch is one, are devoted to char- 
acter building and character saving. Character 
building, under proper environment, will usually 
succeed. It invariably succeeds when the en- 
vironment has Christian associations, but char- 
acter saving is more difficult. It is a mission- 
ary work which never ceases. It is especially 
the work of this Association and millions of 
characters saved attest its efficiency. Statis- 
ticians attempt to estimate the value of a 
[881 



ADDRESS BEFORE Y. M. C. A. 

young man to the community in money. That 
means simply his working power, but the value 
of a young man to a community in his citizen- 
ship is infinitely greater. In this I include his 
place in the family and the church. The loss 
of that young man, not by death, but by 
dissipation, is not only his elimination, but 
it is the effect of his conduct and example upon 
the community when he goes wrong. 

Every enterprise before it reaches ''easy 
street" has a difficult beginning and hard 
sledding over rough roads in its earlier years. 
Our Association is no exception to this rule. In 
1875 the late Cornelius Vanderbilt asked me to 
meet in his office a locomotive engineer from 
Collingwood, near Cleveland. This engineer, 
an energetic, earnest and intense man, described 
his success in forming a Railroad Branch of the 
Young Men's Christian Association at the 
Terminal Yards at Collingwood. He said the 
conditions among the men, on account of diink, 
were bad. He could find no room and so he 
assembled the Associate Engineers and Firemen 
in the Round House. They had induced some 
philanthropic people in Cleveland to give papers 
and books. The success had been so great 
among the men that he felt if the scheme was 
enlarged, its opportunities had no bounds. Mr. 
Vanderbilt's reputation for charity and philan- 
thropy he well knew, and so he came down to 
make this effort. Mr. Vanderbilt said to me, 
[89] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

^'Chauncey, this scheme appeals to me, I will 
take it up." He called in Mr. Tousey, the 
General Superintendent, and after explaining 
the matter, asked if he could not arrange a room 
somewhere for a meeting. One of the lumber 
rooms in the old Grand Central Station in the 
basement was cleaned up, a desk and chairs 
were put in and the first meeting was held. 
Mr. Vanderbilt secured a most efficient Secre- 
tary in the person of Mr. Stockwell, and Mr. 
Vanderbilt paid his salary and all the expenses of 
the enterprise. While the officers of the Com- 
pany assisted, none of them, I think, were in 
sympathy with the movement. They beUeved 
in individual liberty of the employee to the 
limit, and if he went wrong, not try to save or 
reform him, but fire him. The effect of this 
initial movement upon the men coming in and 
who must remain at this Terminal was immedi- 
ately evident. The opposition of the saloons and 
the pool rooms was intense. They did every- 
thing they could to discourage and prevent men 
from the various departments of the service 
joining, but Mr. Stockwell, the Secretary, was 
an attractive, energetic and forceful missionary. 
The rooms soon had daily and weekly news- 
papers, monthly and quarterly magazines, a 
very fair library, tables for games without 
gambling, lectures and courses of religious 
instruction, but not so pressed as to be oppres- 
sive. Then Mr. Vanderbilt conceived the 

[90] 



ADDRESS BEFORE Y. M. C. A. 

wonderful scheme of erecting and presenting 
to the Association this building. When finished, 
it was one of the most attractive club houses in 
New York City. Mr. Stockwell died, and then 
the Association was fortunate in securing one of 
the best men who were bom and trained in this 
work, in Mr. Warburton, who conducted it to 
eminent success for twenty-five years and 
retired at the end of a quarter of a century with 
the love and regret of everybody. I am glad 
that from the large place which he now fills he 
is present with us to-night. 

When the success of this work was demon- 
strated, Mr. Vanderbilt extended it over the 
New York Central Lines. As we went on rail- 
way trips to the West, the Northwest and the 
Pacific Coast, he invariably, when we reached 
the places where were the principal offices of 
the railroads, called upon their chief officers and 
urged them to introduce the system of Railroad 
Branches of the Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation with proper buildings and assistance 
from the railway treasury. In nine cases out 
of ten, these railway officials had little or no 
confidence in the work, but the prestige of Mr. 
Vanderbilt was so great and his earnestness 
so intense that they did not care to disobUge 
him. Not one of them, after the experiment 
was tried, has ever advocated its discontinu- 
ance, on the contrary all have advocated its 
extension. 

[911 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

You gentlemen, here to-night, can hardly 
appreciate the conditions which existed in the 
'70's at railway terminals. They were sur- 
rounded with Hquor saloons and pool rooms. 
These places had runners, many of M^hom were 
in the service of the companies, to bring in 
recruits. The percentage of men dropped every 
month for drunkenness was very large. There 
were serious dangers to the public on account 
of intemperance among the employees. The 
social conditions at the terminals were bad 
because the saloon-keeper got about sixty per 
cent, of the man's earnings and his wife forty 
per cent. After these Associations had been 
estabhshed for a while, the wife got sixty per 
cent, and the saloon got none. The difference 
was evident immediately in the condition of the 
houses, the appearance of the family, the clean- 
liness and spirits of the children, the attendance 
at the schools and the prosperity of the churches. 

This farewell meeting to this building, which 
was erected, completed and endowed by Mr. 
Cornelius Vanderbilt, would be incomplete 
without a tribute to the man. It was my good 
fortune and my happiness to be intimate with 
him from the time of his entrance into the rail- 
way service in his early life until his death. He 
was so modest and retiring, so shunned publicity 
that he was little understood. He was one of the 
most charitable, thoughtful, wisely philanthropic 
and courageous of men. As an instance of his 

[921 



ADDRESS BEFORE Y. M. C. A. 

courage, there was a reform movement started 
at one time against the corruptions of the city 
government. Corruptionists were in control of 
every branch. Mr. Vanderbilt was asked to 
become one of the committee for the meeting. 
An influential member of the city government, 
whom Mr. Vanderbilt knew well, called upon 
him and said, "I come in your own interest and 
as a friend. You are one of the wealthiest men 
in town. Our people control the tax department 
as well as the pohce, the Board of Health, the 
streets and everything needful to your comfort. 
You do not want to incur the active hostility 
of those in power, who cannot be driven out by 
this or any other movement. If you become a 
member of this conamittee, they will regard it as 
an hostile act and you will become a conspicuous 
victim of then- vengeance." When the man left 
his office, Mr. Vanderbilt immediately called up 
the organizer of the meeting and said,'* I will 
not only act as one of your committee, but will 
serve at the meeting as one of your vice-presi- 
dents." 

This is an age of wonderful giving. The 
world knows who the large givers are and the 
amounts they contribute out of their surplus 
for educational, charitable and philanthi'opic 
purposes. There are members of Congress and 
sometimes a preacher who say the people ought 
not to accept these contributions, now amount- 
ing to nearly a thousand million of dollars, 

[93] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

because the givers did not secure their vast 
fortunes in a way which these critics approve. 
It is the money which counts; its income from 
the investment will come long after the donor 
has been dead and forgotten; it will continue its 
work in the colleges, in the research institutions 
to prevent disease and to cure it, in the work to 
multiply the productiveness of the farms and 
to save the vast annual loss from distemper 
and epidemics in live stock, and to create centers 
of education and recreation, and uplift by 
libraries and schools everj^where. Generations 
unborn to the end of time will be recipients of 
this money working for their benefit. 

There are other capitalists whose charities 
are unknown, the memory of whose gifts are 
only with the recipient and with themselves. I 
have known several of these anonymous givers, 
but the most persistent and generous of them 
was Mr. Vanderbilt. Representatives of col- 
leges, of churches, of beneficent institutions of 
all kinds, I have known come to his office in 
despair and leave it with hope and happiness. 
Families and individuals innumerable ahnost 
owe their existence to the continued flow of these 
beneficent and secret gifts. No one but himself 
knew how large a proportion of his income every 
year was appropriated in this way. He was 
always in the many enterprises, church and 
charity, in which he was interested that most 
important member who makes up, no matter 
[941 



ADDRESS BEFORE Y. M. C. A. 

how much the deficiency, what the others have 
failed to do. If it had been possible to preserve 
this building, it would have remained his monu- 
ment, but it had to yield to progress. It is a 
happy illustration of love for himself and his 
work that, when this building had to be aban- 
doned on account of the great improvement 
necessary at this Terminal, his brothers, William 
K. and Frederick W. Vanderbilt, and his son, 
Alfred G. Vanderbilt, have most Uberally and 
generously contributed the money to erect a 
larger, a more complete and a more modern 
structure for the present and future of this 
beneficent work. I love old landmarks. I 
recognize that many of them have to disappear 
because of the great needs of the newer time, 
nevertheless, it is most fortunate that when it is 
possible landmarks, which stand for much in the 
past by way of lesson and example for the 
future, can be preserved. It is most fortunate 
that in the march of civilization across the con- 
tinent. Mount Vernon was left by the wayside 
and not in the path of progress. If the railway 
had not been built and the river Potomac had 
become, as Washington thought it would, a 
great commercial highway, Mount Vernon could 
not have been preserved but would have been 
the site of a thriving industry and great hotels. 
But now in the hands of a society of patriotic 
ladies, it will remain a Mecca for all time for 
lovers of liberty from all over the world. 

[95] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

I recently visited Bunker Hill. I noted how 
the city had surged around it and pressed upon 
it. If three-quarters of a century ago it had 
not been preserved, future generations would 
have lost the flower and fruit of the story of the 
Revolution. 

We rejoice in the growth of the railway with 
which we are connected and with which many 
of us have been so long. A year from next 
January will round out my half century in its 
service. This has been for me fifty years of 
marvelous experience, of wonderful opportuni- 
ties to witness the expansion of the country and 
especially of its railway systems, and of ex- 
quisite pleasure in cherished associations with 
men in every branch of the New York Central, 
and in every capacity in each branch. Equally 
with executive officers have been men whom I 
highly value in the Operating Department, in 
the Freight and Passenger Departments, in the 
Law Department, in the shops, and in every 
activity of this great corporation. In yielding 
to the necessities of expansion of our System, 
this building is to be succeeded by one much 
larger and much better equipped for the present 
and for the future, which is erected, completed 
and will soon be dedicated, but we can to-night 
devote our thoughts to the past, we can think 
of the work which has been done here, we can 
recall the thousands who have loved and 
passed through these rooms, we can rejoice in the 

[96] 



ADDRESS BEFORE Y. M. C. A. 

young men who by the opportunity here offered 
have risen from humble positions to the very 
highest in the service of the railways of the 
country. 

If a volume could be written of characters 
here formed, of characters here rescued, of 
opportunities here availed of, of ambitions here 
aroused, of careers here opened and of happi- 
ness which has come to thousands, in their own 
lives and that of their families, it would be one 
of the most helpful and instructive works in any 
library in the world. 



[97 



Speech at the Grave of Lafayette in Paris on 
the Morning of the Fourth of July, 1914. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I have rarely participated in a more interest- 
ing ceremony than this. I did not know until 
yesterday afternoon the story of the last resting 
place of Lafayette and the history surrounding 
it. I am sure that few Americans know this 
story. It illustrates better than anything two 
conceptions of liberty. During the reign of 
terror those amiable representatives Robe- 
spierre, Danton and Marat decided to clean out 
the prisons, and they made a battue of the 
prisoners and guillotined in one day 1,306. 
Their bodies were thrown into carts which were 
driven out into what was then the country 
around Paris and thrown into a ditch. 

These victims had been guilty of no crime, 
many of them had never been tried, they were 
held because information had been filed with the 
Government against them by spies or enemies. 
The Government under the motto of Liberty, 
Equality and Fraternity was so fearful of their 
power that they killed all who were opposed to or 
suspected by them of being hostile to their con- 
tinuing in office. When the terror was over and 
orderly government and law was restored the 
families of these victims purchased the ground 
[98] 



SPEECH AT Lafayette's grave 

in which they were buried and a large tract 
around it. They surrounded the cemetery with 
a high wall. They then in the adjoining ground 
built a convent and a chapel. They arranged 
with a sisterhood of nuns to give to them the 
convent building, the chapel and grounds, 
providing they would care for the grave of the 
1,306 and would offer prayers continually 
forever. They also provided a fund sufficient 
to maintain the convent and its duties. For over 
two hundred years two of the nuns have been 
day and nights before the altar offering these 
prayers, the sisters being relieved every thirty 
minutes by others. This will continue for all 
time. When Lafayette died he directed that he 
should be buried in the convent grounds next 
to the wall which enclosed the grave of the 
martyrs of the revolution. Here we have two 
remarkable illustrations of liberty. On the one 
side of this wall that liberty of which Madame 
Roland remarked when she stood at the foot of 
the guillotine, "O Liberty, how many crimes 
are committed in they name!" On this side the 
grave of Lafayette represents all that he and 
Washington fought for and all that we Ameri- 
cans and French celebrate on the Fourth of July. 
It is a beautiful custom that the Americans in 
Paris should on every recurring of the birth- 
day of their Republic place a wreath of flowers 
upon the tomb of Lafayette in perpetual com- 
memoration of what he and the French did to 

[99] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

secure our Independence. It means that as long 
as flowers blossom and bloom so long will 
Lafayette's memory remain fresh and fragrant 
with the American people. Time eliminates 
celebrities. The heroes of one age are forgotten 
in the next. A man represents to the mass of the 
people the principles for which he fought and of 
which he was a leader. His associates are 
gradually forgotten and he alone remains to rep- 
resent the idea. 

When I was a boy every American school boy 
and school girl could easily recall the story of a 
score of the great American generals and French 
officers of the American Revolution. To-day I 
doubt if the great mass of the children of the 
United States could do the same for any, except 
Washington and Lafayette. They have crystal- 
lized in their names all that was won for the 
people by the American Revolution and of the 
assistance rendered by the French. Lafayette 
represented a universal conception of liberty 
hitherto unknown. There had always been 
patriots who were willing to sacrifice every- 
thing for their own people and their own 
country, but Lafayette gave himself, his for- 
tune and his future for the liberty of a people of 
whom he knew little personally and the country 
of which he knew less and which he had never 
seen. It was the beginning of that s>Tnpathy 
for the principle by one nation for another which 
was struggling, sacrificing and suffering to secure 
[100] 



SPEECH AT LAFAYETTE S GRAVE 

its rights or a people to win their liberties. 
Knight-errantry had been chivalric on many 
battlefields, but never before to secure or to win 
fundamental rights for others than those of their 
own race or religion. It was the birth of that 
universal idea of liberty which made us sym- 
pathize and help Greece and which carried 
Lord Byron in his romantic gallantry to their 
assistance. It was the same principle which 
carried us into our neighboring island of Cuba 
for its deliverance. 

Right minded people of all nationalties are 
laboring for universal peace. It will come when 
the world understands and is ready to act at any 
sacrifice upon the principles which actuated 
Lafayette and led him to enlist in the cause of 
American Independence. 



101 



Speech at the Fourth of July Banquet of the 
American Chamber of Commerce, Paris, on 
the Evening of the Fourth of July, 1914. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

It has been my pleasure and a very great one 
to attend a majority of the twenty Fourth of 
July banquets which have been given by the 
American Chamber of Commerce in Paris. All 
of them have been interesting and instructive 
with eloquence and humor. I miss the annual 
speech of my venerable friend, Mr. Seligman. 
I think that my prosperity and longevity have 
been assisted by his Fourth of July advice to all 
of us to hve within our incomes and be true to 
our families. 

I have celebrated the Fourth of July in many 
countries and several times on a steamer on the 
Atlantic ocean. The day is a sad one for an 
American on the Atlantic. He recalls, as I well 
remember, that sixty years ago the United 
States had sixty-one per cent, of the tonnage of 
the ocean. To-day it has less than nine per cent. 
This is because practical men have been replaced 
in legislation by theorists The theorists would 
be all right and successful, if the millenium had 
arrived and Gabriel's trumpet had sounded 
and all peoples of all nations were united in one 
[1021 



FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS 

brotherhood and singing the same hymns. 
Gennany, in the meantime, within the last 
quarter of a century has abandoned her theo- 
rists, and her practical men of experience and 
wise statesmanship have made her from nothing 
the second maritime power of the world. 

Sixty years ago the Fourth of July orator was 
most eloquent on the flag of his country flying 
from American ships on every sea and in every 
port of the world. Now the American circles 
the globe and never meets an American ship 
carrying the flag of his country. I love to recall 
the old Fourth of July of sixty and seventy 
years ago, when in every village the veterans at 
sunrise fired the old caimon, the church bells 
rang, the procession went round the streets with 
the old soldiers of previous wars in carriages, the 
people gathered in the grove and listened to the 
reading of the Declaration of Independence 
and the inspiration of the oration. The small 
boy fired his pistol and his crackers, burned his 
fingers and his face with powder and was a 
recruit in the future at the call of his country. 
Now there is no sunrise gun, no procession, no 
oration, everybody goes on a picnic, the children 
eat too much cake, drink too much lemonade, 
fill up with ice cream and remember the Fourth 
of July as stomach-ache day. But under our 
new dispensation it is what the eugenics call a 
sane and safe Fourth of July. 

Americans can celebrate the Fourth of July 

[lOS] 



ON THE THEESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

and bring its spirit anywhere in the world. This 
year it will be significant in England because 
it is a part of the celebrations of the hundred 
years of peace between Enghsh speaking peoples. 
But it is celebrated with more sentiment and 
fervor by Americans away from home in France 
than in any country, for Lafayette and Rocham- 
beau equally with Washington made the Fourth 
of July possible. French aid, French armies 
and French gallantry joining with the American 
army saved liberty for the United States and 
the world. So Americans can say of the French 
on the Fourth of July what my old friend, 
Colonel Somers of South Carolina, said in closing 
a hot discussion on the merits of religious sects. 
The Colonel said, ''I admit that Catholics can 
go to Heaven, so can Baptists, Presbyterians, 
Unitarians and others, but if you wish to go to 
Heaven as a gentleman with gentlemen, you 
must be an Episcopalian." 

To appreciate the spirit of this day, we must 
go back. We must think of what there is of the 
old which is worth preserving. Everything new 
is not better than the old because it is new, nor 
is reform always an improvement. The old 
athlete who regained his strength every time he 
fell on his mother earth typifies the American 
who gets new inspiration from the Constitution 
of the United States. It is fashionable now to 
ridicule these statesmen who one hundred and 
twenty-seven years ago, sitting in convention 

[1041 



FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS 

with their knee breeches, silver buckle shoes and 
silk coats framed the Constitution which Mr. 
Gladstone said was the greatest document ever 
prepared by men at one session. 

The fathers of the Republic in founding their 
government had several distinct purposes. One 
was to form a Union of the States which would 
be indestructable, the other that the people^ 
instead of legislating in mass meetings, should 
elect from their own number competent men to 
be their lawmakers. They then created a new 
department of government, the Supreme Court 
of the United States. The power of this great 
Court was to prevent the Congress from passing 
laws which were not permitted under the Con- 
stitution and to protect the people from uncon- 
stitutional acts, which would impair their 
hberties or confiscate their propert3^ 

This Government has existed unchanged for a 
hundred and twenty-seven years. It has added 
to the Union thirty-five great commonwealths 
or States; peopled the continent and made our 
country the freest and happiest the world has 
ever known. The fathers' central ideas were to 
base their institutions on the individual. All 
governments the world over were built upon 
classes. The fathers abolished classes and gave 
power to the masses. They encouraged the 
individual by giving him the largest liberty to 
work out his own career and destiny. Freed 
from the shackles of aristocracy and privilege 
[1051 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

created by law, the individual has superbly 
demonstrated the wisdom of this poUcy. He 
has built up cities and villages, he has turned 
the wilderness into farms and the waste places 
into gardens. He has scaled the Rocky Moun- 
tains and created an empire on the golden coast 
of the Pacific. He has built mills and manu- 
factories, he has developed water power and 
natural resources, he has found and contributed 
to the world for its health, wealth and happiness 
mines of coal, gold, silver, copper and other 
minerals. He has carried with him everywhere 
religious and civil freedom. He has carried with 
him the church, the schoolhouse and the free 
press. This process and system has permitted 
the ablest and the most resourceful to win great 
prizes, but in a measure the whole community 
has shared in the results of his genius. 

Now we have a new school. This school 
would destroy the safeguards of the Constitution 
and deprive the individual of the fruits of his 
ability, energy, resourcefulness and farsighted- 
ness. The question is and it is an acute one, will 
we have better laws from the mob than from 
Congress? The new school demands that laws 
shall be initiated by a petition of five or ten per 
cent, of the voters and passed by a plurality 
of a general election. So far in the States where 
it has been tried the busy people become con- 
fused by having so many questions to study and 
to act upon, that as a rule only twenty per cent. 

[106] 



FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS 

vote, and eleven per cent, or just a majority 
of the twenty per cent, constitute the govern- 
ment. The new school also would make the 
mob the court. It would recall the judge if a 
temporary majority did not like his decision and 
virtually destroy the court. I believe the best 
judgment of our country is convinced that the 
rights of the minority, the permanence of orderly 
liberty and the safety and welfare of our people 
depend upon preserving the independence and 
integrity of the courts. Our country with two 
great leaders who founded two schools of 
poUtical thought — Hamilton, who believed in a 
strong central government, in the regulation of 
everything possible by law and in providing 
every safeguard against hasty action by the 
people; Jefferson on the other hand beheved 
that the States should be the stronger, that the 
central government should have very Uttle 
power and that there should be the fewest possi- 
ble laws. His famous maxim was, "That gov- 
ernment is best which governs least." The 
Repubhcan Party retains the principles of 
Hamilton in the main. In the changes of a 
century The Democratic Party, which was 
founded by Jefferson, has repudiated Jefferson 
and adopted the principles of Hamilton. It 
believes in strengthening in every way the power 
of the central government. The Presidency has 
grown in power until our chief Magistrate exer- 
cises more authority than the Czar of Russia. 
[107] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

He initiates laws, calls Congress together and 
tells the Senate and the House of Representa- 
tives that they must pass them, and the Senate 
and the House of Representatives with little 
hesitation obey. The people seem to like this 
change in the spirit of our institution but it 
makes our executives all powerful and our 
legislators rubber stamps. 

The new system, the new idea is rapidly 
developing into control by the govermnent of all 
business. The railways are the arteries of pro- 
duction and commerce and their prosperity is 
the sure barometer of the prosperity of the 
country. The control by the government of 
the railroads is now complete but without the 
government assuming any responsibihtj\ With 
the government's approval the wages of the 
employees have been increased within the last 
two years sixty millions of dollars annually on 
the roads East of Chicago, and many more mil- 
hons have been added to the expenses of the 
railroads by full crew laws which are foolish 
and unnecessary, by regulation of the Interstate 
Commerce Commission and taxes. The rail- 
roads have no way of meeting these increased 
expenses except by increasing rates. The 
government has hesitated for many months to 
give relief which is so plainly needed that every 
business man in the United States thinks it 
ought to be done. 

A government official said to me, "When the 

[1081 



FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS 

prophet Elijah asked the widow for some break- 
fast, she said that she and her son were starving, 
that they had only enough meal in the barrel 
and oil in the can for one calce and that she and 
her son were going to eat that cake and then die. 
But Elijah said, ''Keep taking meal out of the 
barrel and oil out of the can and they will never 
fail." The widow had faith, she fed Elijah, her 
son and herself and the whole neighborhood 
while the famine lasted. The more meal she 
took out of the barrel without any being put 
into it, and the more oil she brought out of the 
can without any fresh oils being added, the more 
meal there was left in the barrel and the more 
oil in the can. "Now," said the official, ''why 
cannot the railroads do that? " I said, "Because 
the government do not give us Ehjah." I have 
been in active business for about sixty years and 
during the whole of that time general prosperity 
and good crops have gone hand in hand together. 
There never has been a time when the earth has 
brought out its abundance and the harvests 
have created new wealth that there did not 
follow an improvement in every business and 
booming times in every department of Ameri- 
can investment, endeavor and employment. 
We have assured this year the largest crops in 
the history of our country, the wheat fields give 
two hundred and fifty millions more bushels 
than ever before, and corn, barley, rye, oats and 
cotton show equal phenomenal increases. From 
[109] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

all experience there should be brilliant markets 
and wonderful prosperity, but instead neither 
the exchanges nor the factories nor the labor 
employment bureau responded. What is the 
matter? President Wilson is able and honest. 
He is the best educated and most cultivated of 
our Presidents. He is an eminent college presi- 
dent and professor, but never was in contact 
with business. He said to representatives of 
the 36,000 manufacturers from the West who 
complained to him that they were working on 
half time with half employment because of un- 
certainty as to legislation, there was no reason 
why they should not be running their factories 
on full time and reemploy all their employees. 
"Gentlemen," he said in effect, ** the trouble with 
you is not the laws which have been passed by 
this Congress or which we propose to pass; your 
trouble is purely psychological. Go home and 
think prosperity is here, and you will find it 
here." A lady said to the son of a neighbor, 
"Bobby, how is your father?" Bobby said, "He 
is very sick, madam, and we are afraid he will 
die." The lady said, "Bobby, tell your father 
to think that he is well, and he will be all right 
in a few days." Some time afterwards the lady 
met Bobby again and said, "Bobby, how is your 
father?" "Well," said Bobby, "madam, he 
thinks he is dead and so we buried him." 

We have the new tarifT law and the new cur- 
rency law which most people approve and we can 
fllOl 



FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS 

adjust our business to the new conditions they 
create. But Congress is now passing laws called 
Anti-trust which give to the government the 
power to examine into every business, whether 
by an individual or by a corporation, and to 
ascertain all its secrets and reveal them. This 
legislation is said to have two objects, one to 
promote competition, the other to prevent com- 
petition. The business world says to the Presi- 
dent, to the Cabinet and to the Congress of all 
parties, ''Give us a rest." I am an optimist by 
nature and more so by experience. The Ameri- 
can people, who have accomplished such wonders 
in the last century, in the last fifty years, in the 
last quarter of a century, have still the same 
vigor, the same enterprise and the same hopeful 
audacity as of old. They cannot stand un- 
certainty. Give them the rules of the game, 
whatever they are, and they will play the game 
to the limit and as they have always done to 
success. Their resourcefulness still exists. At 
Hammondsport, New York, the other day, at a 
trial trip of the hydroplane which is to cross the 
Atlantic, they had an American flag, but none of 
England or France, which countries she is to 
visit. A citizen had two cancelled postage 
stamps, one English and the other French. He 
pasted one on one side of the hydroplane and 
the other on the other side, and then she went in 
the air carrying the emblems of the United 
States, France and England. 

[Ill] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

The wonderful report of Admiral Fletcher 
detailing the gallantry of our sailors and soldiers 
at Vera Cruz shows that the spirit of the Revolu- 
tion and of the Civil War on both sides is still as 
brilliant and full of self-sacrifice and patriotism 
as ever. 

Liberty has now more oracles and priests than 
ever before. They interpret her teachings in 
many and diverse ways. They appeal to pas- 
sion, to self interest, to prejudice, to class hatred. 
But she is the same pure spirit which guided the 
patriot armies from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, 
inspired the immortal Declaration of Independ- 
ence and granted wisdom to the framers of the 
Constitution. To maintain in spirit, in legisla- 
tion and in national Ufe her beneficent principles 
is the glorious mission of our sister Republics, 
the United States and France. 



1121 



THE TERCENTENARY OF OUR CHAR- 
TERED COMMERCE 

Written for the New York Times, November 
1st, 1914, Telling its Story Since the Early 
Days of the Dutch and of the Lessons that 
May be Learned From it for the Future 

The first quarter of each century has been 
distinguished by events which have had a 
marked influence on the history of the world. 
In 1314 the union was formed between France 
and Navarre which created a new and dominant 
power in Europe. 

In 1415, one hundred years later, was fought 
the battle of Agincourt which gave France to 
England for a long period of years. In 1610, 
two hundred years later, Henry IV. was 
murdered, the tendency toward liberalism was 
stopped, and France came under the baleful 
influence of Marie de Medici. After the bril- 
liant government of Cardinal Richelieu, the 
Edict of Nantes was repealed, the Huguenots 
scattered over the world, to the great enrich- 
ment of other nations and the paralysis of 
French industry. 

In 1814 the battle of Waterloo ended the 
career of Napoleon and restored Europe for a 
time to Bourbon and autocracy. 

[1131 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

We turn to Germany and find the same fate- 
ful first quarter of the century; 1508 to 1517 
saw the rise of Luther and the most significant 
revolution of the Middle Ages. In 1618 began 
the thirty years' war, which destroyed cities and 
wasted the country, and after awful horrors and 
slaughter left Germany seriously depopulated 
and impoverished. But in 1813 arose the Order 
of the Iron Cross, which drove Napoleon from 
Germany, aroused German patriotism and 
regained Germany independence. 

Great Britain in her history singularly illus- 
trates the same rule. In 1215 the Barons at 
Runnymede wrung from King John Magna 
Charta, the genesis of our own liberties. In 
1314, one hundred years later, the battle of 
Bannockburn united England and Scotland; 
1611 witnessed the completion of our authorized 
version of the Bible. Its influence has been in- 
calculable upon English and American history, 
upon literature in the English language and 
upon the language itself; 1614 was the zenith 
of the activities of Shakespeare, and the battle 
of Waterloo, in 1815, gave to Great Britain her 
escape from the peril to her empire and her com- 
merce and a commanding influence on the ocean 
and in the affairs of Europe, Asia and Africa. 
The victory at Blenheim in 1704 was followed by 
the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which conceded 
the things necessary for the British Empire of 
the future. 

[114] 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

The year 1914 is one of the most fateful, not 
only to the United States but to the world. The 
most gigantic war of all the centuries is in 
progress. Eight hundred millions of people^ 
one-half of the inhabitants of the earth, are in 
deadly conflict, with engines of destruction never 
imagined by the soldiers of the past. The 
destinies of dynasties, the boundaries of empires, 
the liberties of peoples, the future of civilization, 
the influence of Christianity are all involved 
in this titanic conflict. 

But at the same time, for the United States, 
1914 is an era of the victories of peace. It wit- 
nesses the completion of a century of peace be- 
tween the United States and Great Britain. It 
heralds the end of four hundred years of effort 
in the completion of the Panama Canal. It wit- 
nesses the completion of the enlargement of 
the Erie Canal. It brings us together to cel- 
ebrate the three hundredth anniversary of that 
small beginning of the commerce of New York 
which has flowered and fruited in the centuries 
with a speed unknown in the history of more 
ancient capitals, into the leadership of all but 
London and rivalry with her. 

The often tried and often defeated efforts to 
find a northwest passage to the East are what 
led to the discovery of America and the event 
we celebrate. This was the quest of Columbus 
and which caused other navigators to try for an 
open door along the Atlantic Coast and the 
[115] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

Isthmus of Darien. The failure of theh* search 
revealed a continent instead of a strait. It 
gave to the world the opportunity of ample 
room for the development of civil and religious 
liberty, so remote from old despotisms that 
before its meaning and result could be compre- 
hended a new and mighty nation would become 
their guardian and protector. 

The effort of Philip II. to exterminate this 
Uberty in Holland by persecution so terrible 
that it carried one hundred thousand men and 
women to the stake aroused a spirit of defiance 
and independence which turned a whole people 
into an organization known to fame and history 
as the "Beggars of the Sea." These glorious 
mendicants took toll of the ocean. They won 
their lands from the waves by their dikes and 
flooded them to drown their invaders and 
persecutors. They sunk or drove into ports the 
fleets of King Philip and extended their power 
over Java and East Indian islands, and others 
in the West Indies which Holland still owns. 

But their spiritual development was greater 
than their material victories. In an age en- 
veloped in darkness, they gave home and wel- 
come to alien races and religions. The Jew was 
safe, and Catholics and Protestants found equal 
freedom. The Puritans, fleeing from England, 
had the unrestricted enjoyment of religion 
according to their belief, an open field for earning 
a living by their industries and the incalculable 

[116] 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

advantage of Dutch schools and Leyden Uni- 
versity, at that time the best in Europe. Dutch 
scholars were leaders of thought and their artists 
of unequaled genius. Their inventors gave to 
science the microscope and improved the tele- 
scope. Such were the people who founded New 
York and started it upon its unperial career. 

The discovery of North and South America 
stirred nations and individuals to grasp and util- 
ize their treasures. The only settlement purely 
for liberty in all the tragic story of those centu- 
ries upon the Americas was that of the Pilgrims 
on Plymouth Rock. Cortez and Pizarro were 
ruthless and savage conquerors. St. Augustine 
was founded in 1565 as a Spanish military post 
and developed no commerce. The English set- 
tled in Jamestown in 1607, but the colonists 
had to be supported for years by the mother 
country, not even raising enough for food. In 
1614 they commenced cultivating and exporting 
tobacco, which after some years made them self- 
supporting, but they created no commerce. 

The Pilgrhns from their settlement devoted 
themselves to domestic affairs, but had no 
foreign trade. The settlement of New York 
between the dates of Jamestown and Plymouth 
was purely a commercial enterprise. It was 
successful from the start, and the growth and 
expansion of its commerce have gone on during 
three centuries until it has reached its present 
imperial and worldwide proportions. 

[117] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

Henry Hudson, an Englishman, was prominent 
among those early adventurers whose tales could 
draw cash and ships from Kings and merchant 
princes. His story captured the imagination of 
Henry IV. of France, the hero of Navarre, but 
the merchants of Holland were quicker and more 
audacious and secured his services. He made 
both believe that he was the sole possessor of the 
secret of the coveted northwest passage to India. 
The solid men of Amsterdam gave him the good 
ship Half Moon of 100 tons, fully manned and 
equipped for a long voyage. 

Henry Hudson was never in a hurry. He 
added to his English stolidness and tenacity a 
large measure of Dutch phlegm and love of 
ease. On Wednesday, September 2, 1609, at 5 
o'clock in the afternoon, according to the log of 
the Half Moon, she dropped anchor at Sandy 
Hook. She remained in the lower bay ten days 
to give time for the Captain and his Holland 
staff to reflect on the situation. September 12 
she raised anchor, sailed through the Narrows 
and anchored off the Battery. The next day, 
September 13, she made eleven and a half 
miles to Spuyten Duj^il Creek. There Hud- 
son's boats discovered that Manhattan was an 
island, and old New York owes to him tliis im- 
portant information. On the 14th the Half 
Moon reached Yonkers, and, being satisfied 
that he had found the strait leading to the goal 
of his quest, the northwest passage to India, he 

[1181 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

continued up the Hudson until the shallows 
near Troy grounded his ship and dispelled his 
hopes. He reached New York on his returning 
trip October 4, having in the month demon- 
strated the navigability of the river and gained 
immortality for himself by giving his name to 
this most picturesque of rivers. When he 
cleared the harbor and pointed his prow for 
Europe, the Half Moon became the pioneer of 
the ocean sailing vessels which for three cen- 
turies in large fleets have made New York the 
chief port of the Western Hemisphere. 

Hudson, having failed in his contract to find 
the northwest passage, stayed in England on his 
return, but sent the Half Moon and the maps 
and accounts of his discoveries to the East India 
Company at Amsterdam. The Half Moon, the 
pioneer of shipping to and from New York, was 
lost in 1G15 in the Indian Ocean. These far- 
sighted and enterprising Dutch merchants saw 
the possibilities in Hudson's report and maps 
of the new country he had found and explored. 

The Dutch had not three hundred years ago 
advanced to our present distrust of the in- 
dividual and fear of his success. They en- 
couraged their citizens to undertake adventurous 
enterprises all over the world by promising 
them large returns if successful, not from the 
State but from the results of their discoveries. 
The explorers took all risks and perils, and if 
unsuccessful the losses, but were protected in 

[119] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

their conquests until amply repaid. The East 
India Company, operating in the East Indies 
and eastern coasts of Asia and Africa, had not 
only gained riches, but added enormously to the 
wealth and prosperity of their country. 

The present colonies of Holland in the East 
came from the East India Company. In 1612 
the enterprising merchants of Amsterdam fitted 
out two ships to confirm Hudson's discoveries, 
one under Captain Christensen, the other under 
Captain Block. They built four huts for trading 
purposes on what is now 39 Broadway, and there 
the commerce of New York began. 

Here we pause to pay tribute to Captain 
Block. His ship was burned in our harbor. 
Nothing daunted, this intrepid navigator turned 
ship builder. The magnitude of the task would 
have been appalling to the average man, but 
Captain Block was a pioneer of civilization. 
With no shipyards, no tools but those saved 
from the wreck, no machinery for cutting down 
the trees or sawing the logs, the Captain hewed 
out of the primeval forest the materials for a 
ship forty-four and a half feet from stem to stern 
and eleven and a half feet wide. He named her 
the "Onrush," or Restless. Her activities 
justified her name. She sailed lightly through 
the perils of Hell Gate, rounded Cape Cod on the 
north and anchored in Delaware Bay on the 
south. Her intelligent Captain made maps, 
whose accuracy was subsequently verified, of 

[1201 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

Long Island Sound and the coasts of Rhode 
Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. This 
modest hero, whose achievements have little 
mention in our histories, whose only monument 
is Block Island, whose reward was to be made 
commander twelve years after, in 1624, of the 
whole fleet sailing between this port and Hol- 
land, was the founder of the mercantile marine 
of the United States. 

''The States General of the Free United 
Netherlands Provinces" published in March, 
1614, that they would "grant to whoever shall 
resort to and discover new lands and places" 
the right that they "shall alone be privileged 
to make four voyages to such lands and places 
from these countries exclusive of every other 
person until the aforesaid voyages shall be 
concluded." The return of Captain Block with 
his report of his discoveries and statement of the 
possible commercial opportunities of the terri- 
tories along the Hudson and Long Island Sound 
aroused the Dutch merchants to renewed efforts. 
They formed a company called the New Nether- 
lands Company, and this company on the 11th 
of October, 1614, was granted a charter from the 
Government of which the following are the main 
features : 

Grant of exclusive trade to New Netherlands. 
The States General of the United Netherlands 
to all to whom these presents shall come, 
greeting: Whereas Garrett Jacob Witssen, 

[1211 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

ancient Burgomaster of the City of Amsterdam 
(and certain other persons named), all now 
represented in one company, have respectfully 
represented to us that they the petitioners after 
great expense and damages by loss of ships and 
other dangers have during the present year dis- 
covered and found with the above-named ships 
certain new land situated in America between 
New France and Virginia, the sea coasts whereof 
are between forty and forty-five degrees of lati- 
tude, and now called ''New Netherlands"; and 
whereas we did in the month of March last, for 
the promotion and increase of commerce, cause 
to be published a certain general consent and 
charter, setting forth that whoever should there- 
after discover certain new havens, lands, or 
passages might frequent or cause to be fre- 
quented for four voyages such newly discovered 
and found places, to the exclusion of all others 
from visiting or frequenting the same from the 
United Netherlands until the discoverers or 
finders shall themselves have completed the said 
four voyages, or cause them to be completed 
within the time described for that purpose under 
the penalties expressed in our said Octroy, etc. ; 
they request that we shall record to them due 
account of the aforesaid Octroy in due form. 

Which being considered, we therefore in our 

assembly have heard the pertinent report of 

said petitioners * * * have consented and 

granted, and by these presents do consent and 

[122] 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

grant, to said petitioners now united into one 
company, that they shall be privileged ex- 
clusively to frequent or cause to be visited the 
above newly described lands in America, 
between New France and Virginia * * * for 
four voyages within the time of three years com- 
mencing the 1st of January, 1615, next ensuing, 
or sooner, without it being permitted to any 
other person from the United Netherlands to 
sail to or frequent the said newly described 
lands, havens, or places, either directly or in- 
directly, on pain of confiscation of the vessel 
and cargo wherewith infraction hereof shall be 
attempted, and a fine of fifty thousand Nether- 
land ducats for the benefit of said discoverers or 
finders; provided nevertheless that by these 
presents we do not intend to prejudice or 
diminish any of our former grants or charters, 
and it is also our intention that if any disputes or 
differences from these are developed they shall 
be decided by ourselves. 

We therefore expressly command all govern- 
ors, justices, officers, and inhabitants of the 
aforesaid United Countries that they allow the 
said company peaceably and quietly to enjoy 
the whole benefit of this our grant and consent, 
ceasing all contradictions and obstacles to the 
•contrary. For such we have found to appertain 
to the public service. 

Given under our seal, paraph, and the signa- 
ture of our secretary. 

[123] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

At The Hague, the 11th of October, 1614. 

Thus, on October 11, 1614, not by accident, 
but by able and farsighted citizens of Holland, 
recognizing the wonderful situation and limitless 
future of our unequalled harbor and an en- 
Hghtened Government encouraging their efforts, 
was begun in a formal way and under solemn 
official sanction the commerce of New York. 

The first report of the beginning of commerce 
came two years later from Captain Cornehus 
Hendricksen, who reported to the Government 
that he had for his masters, the New Nether- 
lands Company, "discovered certain lands in 
North America and did trade there with the 
Indians, said trade consisting of sable furs, 
robes and skins. He hath found the country 
full of trees and hath seen in said country bucks 
and does, turkeys and partridges." 

Trade developed rapidly. Present business 
was profitable and increasing. So at the end of 
four years the New Netherlands Company 
applied for and was granted by special license 
an extension for three years until June 23, 1621. 
When the company asked in 1621 that instead 
of special ficense the charter should be renewed 
for a long period, the request was denied. In 
this connection there develops an interesting 
and epoch-making chapter in the history both 
of Holland and of New York. 

The eighty years' war for Dutch independence 
had resulted in 1609 in the impoverishment of 

[1241 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

Spain, and Holland becoming one of the richest 
and most enterprising nations in Europe. Spain 
asked for a truce until 1621, which was agreed 
upon. This truce was followed immediately by 
activities in exploration and of commerce by 
Holland and its first result was the sailing of 
Hudson and the Half Moon a few days after. 

In 1579 the Dutch, having revolted from the 
tjranny and persecutions of the Spanish, had 
formed a confederation of the seven provinces 
and united them as States in the union of the 
United Netherlands. This successful federated 
Government of independent States gave the 
idea and methods to our forefathers for the 
creation of the Repubhc of the United States. 
When the truce of 1609 to 1621 was ended by 
Spain renewing the war for the subjugation of 
the Netherlands, the Dutch Government, in 
denying the extension of the charter of the New 
Netherlands Company, notified the petitioners 
that they must form a new and more powerful 
corporation which could not only increase the 
commerce of the mother country, but be suffi- 
ciently strong in armed ships to protect it. 

Acting upon this suggestion, the members of 
the company invited a general subscription for a 
new corporation to take over the business of the 
old and meet the requirements of the Govern- 
ment. It was capitalized at $2,800,000, an 
enonnous sima for those days, but the capital 
was over-subscribed $43,261.44. Each of the 
[125 1 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

seven provinces or States had a representation 
in the directory of twenty, proportional to their 
subscriptions. The company was granted vast 
powers not only for commerce, but for war and 
peace. 

On February 12, 1620, New York lost one of 
those opportunities which, if availed of, change 
the course of history. Pastor Robinson, the 
minister and leader of the Pilgrim Fathers in 
Holland, desired to bring his flock of 400 families 
to New York. The New Netherlands Company 
was most anxious to secure these settlers, but 
not having the transportation or warships to 
convey them, petitioned the States General for 
both. The States General were exhausting all 
public and private facilities to prosecute the 
renewal of the war with Spain and were obhged 
to decline. 

If the Pilgrims could have waited a year until 
the powerful West India Company had its fleet 
on the ocean, the settlement of Massachusetts 
might have been long postponed, and under the 
mellowing influences of our unsurpassed climate 
and associations with the genial and hospitable 
Dutch, the Pilgrim Father might have become a 
Dutchman. But literature and eloquence would 
have lost some of their noblest and most in- 
spiring contributions. 

The West India Company, in the midst of its 
activities in war, systematically and wisely 
developed its New York possessions. The Dutch, 
[1261 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

acting with traditional honesty, instead of tak- 
ing the land by force, opened negotiations with 
the Indians, and the company reported to the 
States General that it had purchased the Island 
of Manhattan from the wild men ''for the value 
of sixty guilders; it is eleven thousand morgens 
in extent." If that is translated in terms of to- 
day, the Island of Manhattan, consisting of 
twenty-four thousand acres of land, was bought 
from the Indians for twenty-four dollars. 

Immigration was encouraged, and the price 
of the passage from Amsterdam to New York, 
everything included, was only six dollars, though 
the time was about eight weeks. The land in- 
creased rapidly in value. The records show that 
in 1640, twenty-four years after the purchase 
of the island, in the settled parts and on the 
principal streets a lot with a frontage of thirty 
feet on the best business street could be bought 
for fourteen dollars, while in the residential 
part the same sum would secure one hundred 
feet frontage. In 1656, thirty years after the 
arrival of the first permanent settlers, a census 
was taken which enumerated seventeen streets, 
one hundred and twenty houses and one thou- 
sand inhabitants. 

Our study naturally turns to the beginning 
and development of trade from this port. The 
first account is the arrival at Amsterdam in 1624 
of the New Netherlands, which had carried out 
thirty families and the equipment for their 

[1271 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

settlement. Her return cargo was 500 otter 
skins, 1,500 beavers, and other things which sold 
for 28,000 guilders, or about $11,000. The first 
official report to the Government is as follows : 

High and Mighty Lords : 

Yesterday arrived here the ship "Arms of 
Amsterdam," which sailed from New Nether- 
lands at the River Mauritius (the Hudson) on 
the twenty- third of September. They report that 
our people are in good heart and live in peace 
there; the women have borne some children 
there. 

They have purchased the Island Manhattans 
from the Indians for the value of sixty guilders ; 
it is eleven thousand morgens size. They had 
all their grain sowed by the middle of May and 
reaped by the middle of August. They send 
some samples of summer grain, such as wheat, 
rye, barley, etc. The cargo of the aforesaid 
ship is 7,246 beaver skins. 1783^ otter skins, 
675 otter skins, 48 minck skins, 36 wild cat skins, 
33 mincks, 34 rat skins, and considerable oak 
timber and hickory. 

Herewith, High and Mighty Lords, be com- 
mended to the Mercy of the Almighty. 

To the High and Mighty Lords: 

My Lords, The States General at the Hague. 
Your High Mightinesses' Obedient, 

(Signed) P. SCHAGER. 



128 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

This shows that in two years the trade had 
aboutdoubled — from $11,000 in value of exports 
to $20,000. Oak and hickory timber had been 
added to furs. This germ of a commerce which 
is now the most important in the Western 
Hemisphere, if not in the world, seems insig- 
nificant. That it has grown to its present 
magnitude in three centuries is an additional 
wonder of the world. During this period many 
cities and ports, famous and powerful then and 
in preceding centiu-ies, have lost their commerce 
and decayed. 

But our city has had a steady and uninter- 
rupted growth. Part has been due to its 
wonderful natural advantages, but much to the 
enterprise and public spirit of its citizens. The 
construction of the Erie Canal opened up to 
settlement the vast territories around the Great 
Lakes and made them tributary to New York. 
The network of railways promoted and built 
by New York capital have emphasized for our 
city the ancient legend that all roads lead to 
Rome. 

The West India Company published a table of 
its trade under the title "A list of returns from 
the New Netherlands, 1624 to 1635," but m- 
cludes only beavers and other skins, and gives 
theu" values at 27,125 guilders in 1624, 35,825 
in 1625, 68,001 in 1630, and 134,925 in 1635. 
The trade had grown in ten years from eleven 
thousand to fifty thousand dollars in these 

[129] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

articles alone. The imports of general merchan- 
dise for the colony kept pace with the exports 
and were about equal value during these years. 
The rules of the company were not favorable to 
general conmierce, as they required that all 
trade, whether European or coastwise, earned 
by the colonists must be brought to the custom 
house in New York (then New Amsterdam) 
and pay a duty of 5 per cent. 

While we are the heirs of all the ages, we in- 
herit all the problems which our ancestors failed 
completely to solve. The currency question 
vexed our primitive fathers three hundred years 
ago as acutely as it has and still does ourselves. 
The people began to be troubled with this ob- 
stacle to their conunercial interchanges almost 
immediately. Their principal trade was with 
the Indians in the purchase of furs and sale to 
them of merchandise. 

The currency of the Indians was known as 
"sewan," or ''wampmn," consisting of beads 
made from shells. As the colonists had no 
mint to coin metals, this currency became com- 
mon not only in dealing with the Indians, but 
among themselves. Six white or three black 
beads were equal to one stiver, a Dutch coin 
worth 2 cents of our money. As the trade of the 
colony extended to New England, the Yankees 
in dealing with the Dutch used this ''sewan," or 
"wampum." The wampum mint of the colony 
was on Long Island, and the issue of this kind 

[130] 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

of money carefully guarded and restricted. But 
the enterprise and cunning of their Connecticut 
neighbors were soon evident. The colony was 
flooded with false wampum manufactured and put 
in circulation by the Yankees. As fiat money 
and free silver drive out gold, the same inexor- 
able rule in infant New Amsterdam led to the 
good wampum being hoarded and disappear- 
ing. Stringent laws were passed, penalties im- 
posed, and the Connecticut currency placed 
on a 50 per cent, basis compared with the Dutch. 

Financial chaos was prevented by the Enghsh 
conquest of New Amsterdam in August, 1664. 
They changed the name from New Amsterdam 
to New York and introduced the gold standard, 
which happily has prevailed ever since. Thus 
history constantly repeats itself. 

When old Governor Petrus Stuyvesant passed 
the city and colony over to the British in 1664, 
because he was compelled by the overwhelming 
force of the enemy, the city had four hundred 
houses and a population of about three thou- 
sand. 

The value of the commerce of New Amster- 
dam when the British gained control was about 
$50,000 annually in exports, mainly furs, and 
an equal amount of imports. The first official 
report in 1697 under the Enghsh flag gave the 
exports to the British Isles at £10,093, showing 
no growth, or about $50,000. The Dutch mer- 
chants of New York had not adjusted them- 

[131] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

selves to the breaking off of their relations with 
Holland and compulsory traffic with Great 
Britain. The exports of Virginia and Maryland 
for the same year were £220,758 in value, or 
nearly five times that of New York ; New England 
£26,282, and South CaroUna £12,374, exceeded 
New York by £2,370. New York suppHed less 
than five per cent, of American exports at any 
time prior to the Revolutionary War. The value 
of the exports of all the American colonies to 
Great Britain, almost their only market, was 
in 1700 £395,000, of which New York sent 
£17,567. In 1750, £814,000, of which £35,663 
only went from New York, and in 1773, the 
last year before the troubles began with the 
mother country which culminated in 1776, 
£1,000,369, of which £60,000 was contributed 
by New York. 

After the Revolution, New York began to 
forge ahead, and in 1791 took fourth place 
among the exporting States. Pennsylvania 
came first with $3,436,093, Virginia next wdth 
$3,131,865, then Massachusetts with $2,519,621, 
and New York with $2,239,691. But in 1800 
New York took the first place in the export 
trade. In the decade ending with 1800 New 
York supplied 19 per cent, of the exports from 
the United States ; in the period ending with 1850, 
26 per cent. ; in 1860, 35 per cent., and the decade 
ending in 1880, 48 per cent. 

In recent years new and vigorous competitors 

[132] 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

against New York have arisen because of the 
construction of north and south railways in the 
Mississippi Valley, our great and increasing 
exports to Mexico and Canada, and the multipli- 
cation of ports and their facihties and steam- 
ship lines. But against all these powerful 
diversions and local efforts New York's share 
of the export trade of the whole United States 
is still 40 per cent., and of the import trade 60 
per cent. The total trade of New York in 1913 
was $2,000,000,000, nearly equally divided 
between export and import. 

The exports from the United States in the 
Colonial period were mainly furs and timber, 
and later tobacco from the South. In 1803 our 
exports began to be varied and to show the 
expansion of our industries. Agriculture con- 
tributed $30,000,000, the forests $5,000,000, 
the fisheries $2,500,000, and manufactures 
$1,000,000. But it is in manufactures where we 
have made the most progress and rapid gains. 
Our surplus for export has grown from $1,000,- 
000 in 1800 to $1,000,000,000 in 1913. 

In 1800 the United States was fairly equipped 
to enter the competition for the commerce of 
the world with the old and highly organized 
industrial countries. In the succeeding half 
century steam had revolutionized navigation, 
the Erie Canal had opened the vast and fertile 
West, railroads were piercing the passes from the 
Atlantic coast to the interior. 

[1331 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

From 1800 to 1913 the commerce of Great 
Britain has grown from $335,000,000 to S5,500,- 
000,000 a year; that of what is now the German 
Empire from $108,000,000 to $4,500,000,000, 
and that of the United States from $85,000,000, 
in 1800 to $4,500,000,000 in 1913. Stated in 
percentages, the trade of Great Britain and 
France is now eighteen times as much as in 
1800, Germany twenty-four times as much, and 
the United States fifty times as much. 

Three hundred years ago the commerce of 
New York began in a log hut built on the site of 
39 Broadway for the storage of beaver and otter 
skins. Venice was still mistress of the seas; 
Genoa, with declining trade, was enjoying the 
luxuries of her accumulated riches; Great 
Britain and France were gaining commerce for 
their cities by battles and victories on sea and 
land; Spain was accumulating the wealth which 
proved her ruin from Mexico and South America; 
Peking and Moscow were controlling the produc- 
tions of the Orient. Three centuries of un- 
paralleled revolutions in the power of peoples, 
the boundaries of empires, inventions of steam 
and electricity have so altered the commercial 
highways of the world that ancient marts are 
archaeological museums and new centers have 
grown by leaps and bounds until they have ac- 
complished more in a few generations than older 
cities in as many centuries. 

[134] 



OUR CHARTERED COMMERCE 

New York now becomes easily the greatest 
metropolis of the world while all other nations 
are involved in this awful and disastrous war. 
It is an opportunity which, in the interest of 
civilization and humanity, we profoundly regret. 
But with opportunity is coupled duty, and in 
the performance of that duty we help dependent 
peoples who are cut off from their sources of 
supply and keep open channels of commerce, 
needed alike by combatants and non-com- 
batants. We should prepare for these great 
responsibilities. We should learn the wants of 
peoples whose commercial connections are 
paralyzed or suspended, and our manufacturers 
should expand their productions to meet the 
requirements of the world. The seas and ports 
of the earth should once more welcome an 
American merchant marine, the creation and 
growth of this miraculous opportunity. 

We hope for peace, we pray for peace, and 
when it once more reigns and blesses we will 
hail with joy our rivals of all lands to an open 
door for the revival of their trade and commerce. 



[135] 



THE WORLD WAR 

Reminiscences and Remarks at the Meeting 
of the New York Genealogical and Bio- 
graphical Society 

On the afternoon of January 8th, 1915, at a 
special meeting, the Society was honored by the 
presence of the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew and 
the Hon. Joseph H. Choate and an audience 
which filled the Hall. 

Very appropriately, on this anniversary of the 
Battle of New Orleans, the subject discussed 
by the distinguished speakers was the world war 
in Europe. Those who were present and those 
unfortunate enough to have missed the occasion 
will thank the Publication Committee for the 
following reproduction of the addresses in 
verbatim form. 

In a few felicitous remarks, Mr. Bowen, the 
President, introduced Mr. Depew, who spoke 
as follows: 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The task that has been imposed upon me is a 
pretty difficult one, as all the pages of all the 
press, with extra pages added, are twice a day 
trying to tell this story — to ask me to tell it in 
thirty-five minutes. I tell you it simply can't 
be done! 

[1361 



THE WORLD WAR 

Mr. Choate: The whole hour is yours. 
(Laughter.) 

Mr. Depew: I gave close study to this ques- 
tion when in Europe, and was one of that vast 
army who are now bursting their throats to 
death all over the country, narrating their ex- 
periences, some of which happened. (Laughter.) 

It is a curious and interesting fact that this 
most frightful war of all centuries happens in the 
semi-centennial year of the Red Cross Society. 
The Red Cross Society is the only international 
organization since men submitted their disputes 
to the arbitrament of the sword which alleviates 
the sufferings and saves the lives of the wounded 
upon the battle-fields and in the hospitals, and of 
those who are invalided from exposure and hard- 
ship. The first of these organizations of mercy 
in a great war was the Sanitary Commission or- 
ganized in the North soon after the beginning 
of our Civil War. Its work was so beneficent 
and effective that the fame of it became univer- 
sal. This led, in 1864, fifty years ago, to 
representatives of seventeen nations meeting at 
Geneva and forming the Red Cross Society. 
The work of that Society has expanded and it 
has done incalculable service for mercy among 
the victims of earthquakes, floods, fires and 
other calamities which have been beyond the 
means of the neighborhood and have aroused 
the sympathy of the world. 

When we look for the beginning of this 
[137] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

titanic struggle, we find its genesis in the Franco- 
Prussian War of 1870. The most wonderful 
constructive statesman of his generation and 
rarely equalled in any period was Bismarck. 
He was, at the beginning of the war and had 
been for many years, the Prime Minister and 
practical ruler of the Kingdom of Prussia. He 
had a great ambition to unite all the kingdoms, 
principahties, duchies and other separate gov- 
ernments of Germany into one Empire, under 
the leadership of Prussia, with the King of 
Prussia its Emperor. 

Austria was the leader of the German Race. 
Bismarck picked a quarrel with Austria and in a 
short campaign won the victory at Sadowa 
which humbled Austria and transferred the 
leadership of the Germans to Prussia. He 
smashed King George of Hanover, tumbled 
him off his throne, seized his vast treasures, 
called the Guelph Fund, and annexed Hanover 
to Prussia. That Guelph Fund, Bismarck 
said frankly, years afterwards, enabled him to 
overcome the jealousies of the minor German 
States in forming his empire and securing the 
leadership to Prussia's King. 

France had occupied for a long time the 
leading place in Europe in international in- 
fluence, in literature, the arts and industries. 
To secure Germany the position held by France, 
it was necessary by war to crush the empire of 
the Third Napoleon. The corruptions of that 

[1381 



THE WORLD WAR 

government were so great and had so weakened 
the army and the patriotism of the people, that 
the conquest was not difficult, provided France 
could be isolated and the other great Powers 
induced to keep their hands off. Here came one 
of the greatest triumphs of diplomacy. Bis- 
marck succeeded in so intensifying the fears 
and animosities between Great Britain and 
Russia that he brought them to the verge of war. 
Then, with a clear field, he invaded France and 
in a short campaign ended French Power at 
Sedan and crowned King William of Prussia 
Emperor of Germany at Versailles. 

Having thus united the States of Germany, he 
thought it necessary for Germany's future 
development to render France helpless as to 
power or influence. He imposed in the Treaty 
of Peace terms so severe that not only Bismarck, 
but all the statesmen of Europe, felt that it 
would be impossible for France ever to rise to a 
position where she would be a factor, except 
under the dictation of Germany, in the affairs of 
Europe. He took from France her two richest 
provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, and annexed 
them to Germany. He imposed a fine upon 
France, called an indemnity, of a magnitude 
greater by far than ever had been exacted from 
a defeated enemy. He demanded a milliard of 
francs, or a thousand milhons of dollars in gold, 
to be paid at stated intervals, within a definite 
period. 

[1391 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY-TWO 

To France, deprived of two of the best con- 
tributors to her finances, staggering under the 
frightful debt incurred in carrying on the war, 
piled onto the debt which was the inheritance 
of Napoleonic wars, Bourbon extravagance and 
Third Empire corruption, this fine or indemnity 
seemed, in the opinion of Europe, to condenm 
France to hopeless poverty for generations. 
Then occurred the miracle of the nations. The 
French people found, in their savings, in their 
stockings, under their hearths, in the hiding 
places of their peasants and working people 
and in the credit of their bankers, the gold to 
pay to Germany this thousand millions of 
dollars in an incredibly short time. Relieved of 
the German army, which was kept in France to 
enforce the payment of the indemnity, the 
French people, with an energy, hopefulness, re- 
sourcefulness and spirit never equalled, bent 
their individual and united energies to the resur- 
rection and rehabilitation of their country. 
They began to be the bankers of Europe. They 
loaned to Russia two thousand millions of 
dollars, and hundreds of millions to other coun- 
tries. At the same time they have perfected 
their railway systems, their telegraphs and tele- 
phones, and other vast works of public improve- 
ment, and organized and maintained an araiy 
equal on a peace footing to that of Germany, and 
a navy the third in the world. Bismarck and, 
after him, the present Emperor and his advisers, 

[140] 



THE WORLD WAR 

became alarmed at this miraculous revival of 
French national spirit and achievement and the 
demonstration of its financial and economic 
abihty. Some years after peace, I have been 
informed by English statesmen, the Emperor laid 
before Queen Victoria, who, as you know, was 
his grandmother, the danger to England as well 
as Germany by this ever-increasing power of 
France. He asked that Germany be given a free 
hand to rectify the mistake made by the terms 
of peace, and to reduce France by another war. 
Queen Victoria said, ''No," with an emphasis 
which was fmal and induced Russia to dehver 
an equally emphatic negative. 

Return now to the German Empire and its 
progress and ideals during these forty-four years. 
The separate nationalities of states which made 
up the GeiTQan Empire in 1870 were poor and 
the victims of jealousies and animosities of cen- 
turies, of warring dynasties and rehgious revolu- 
tions. To the young Empire, thus situated, 
came this enormous gift of one thousand millions 
of dollars in gold. It came to be administered 
for the uplift of Germany by men of extraor- 
dinary administrative and executive abiUty. 
Bismarck was succeeded by the present Em- 
peror, who has demonstrated in his twenty-five 
years the highest quahties of a Ruler in the 
development of his Empire's resources and in- 
dustries, and the expansion of its opportunities 
for trade and commerce, 

[141] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

We Americans speak boastfully, and yet our 
boasts are plain truths in regard to the progress 
and growth of our country since the end of the 
Civil War. But the advancement of Germany, 
industrially and commercially, during the same 
period, has been quite as remarkable. Prior to 
that time, the congestion of population forced 
German emigration all over the world. Bis- 
marck said to a friend of mine, "To provide 
for the German cradle, we must expand in 
territory. We must have colonies for our 
surplus population." The stimulated industries 
of Germany have so well taken care of her in- 
creasing numbers of people that imniigration 
has almost ceased. The Empire has become 
a vast workshop. It is supplying, not only the 
needs of the German people, but is entering the 
markets of the world in successful competition, 
not only with Great Britain but with all other 
highly organized industrial nations. 

Under the impetus and inspiration of the 
Emperor, Germany has built up from insignifi- 
cant numbers the second greatest mercantile 
marine in the world. She has become in power 
and equipment second as a Naval Power. Her 
Navy and her mercantile marine, working to- 
gether for the expansion of her commerce, have 
given her, from an unplaced position forty-four 
years ago, a commanding influence in supplying 
the needs and meeting the markets of South and 
Central America, of Africa and of Asia. She 

[1421 



THE WORLD WAR 

has entered into formidable competition in the 
domestic markets of Great Britain and her 
colonies and of the United States. Through her 
state-owned railroads, the German Government 
has become a partner in every industry in her 
empire, not only for encouragement but assist- 
ance, in the export of her products. Her bank- 
ing resources have advanced with equal strides 
and most intelligent administration. Her 
schools have specially prepared the advance 
agents of her industries to study the wants and 
meet the requirements of civilized, barbaric and 
semi-savage people of different races and con- 
tinents. Her universities have become the 
admiration of other nations, and places of pil- 
grimage for their young men. She has created 
a military system upon a basis of universal, 
compulsory service never equalled. This has 
made for her a dominant military class and 
caused her to be the foremost of military powers. 
Though she had already the greatest military es- 
tablishment of any nation, this last year, when 
the General Staff asked for two hundred and fifty 
millions of dollars, to place the army far and 
away in advance of all others, the amount was 
voted unanimously by a tax upon the capital of 
the country and not upon its income. The in- 
dustrial and intellectual classes have put the 
military in supreme power in their government. 
The industrial classes and the financial interests 
believe their safety and prosperity are in the 

[143] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

largest and the strongest army they are capable 
of supporting, while the teachers of the land 
have been instructing the youth of every age 
in the necessity of German power and the right 
by might of the expansion of German ambitions 
and ideals. Here we have the spark which re- 
quired only the match to set the worid aflame. 

I came recently upon a passage in the works 
of Heinrich Heine, who ranks next to Goethe 
and Schiller in influence upon German thought, 
written in 1834, the year in which I was bom. 

*" Christianity — and this is its highest 
merit — has in some degree softened, but it 
could not destroy, the brutal German joy 
of battle. When once the taming tahsman, 
the Cross, breaks in two, the savagery of 
the old fighters, the senseless Berserker 
fury, of which the Northern poets sing and 
say so much, will gush up anew. That talis- 
man is decayed and the day will come when 
it will piteously collapse. 

Then the old stone gods will rise from the 
silent ruins and rub the dust of a thousand 
years from their eyes. Thor, with his 
giant's hammer, will at last spring up and 
shatter to bits the Gothic Cathedrals." 

It is hardly possible to estimate the influence 
of the philosophy of Nietzsche and its subse- 

♦ From " Germania," by Heinrich Heine. Leland'a English translatioa, 
Vol. 1, pp. 207-8; New York, J. W. Lovell, 1892. 

11441 



THE WORLD WAR 

quent enforcement in the long service in the 
universities of Treitschke upon German thought 
and action. Their philosophy was "might 
makes right"; that German culture is the neces- 
sity of the world; that nothing should be 
permitted to stand in the way of the attain- 
ment by Germany of what the Emperor would 
call "her place in the sun," so treaties become 
scraps of paper. 

In further illustration and more immediately 
practical, a relative of mine, of superior talent 
and acquirement, was a student in one of the 
German universities — a student in laboratory 
work — came in close contact with the professors. 
The talk of the professors at recess was that war 
was a necessity for Germany; that she was not 
only threatened by Russia on one side and 
France on the other, but was so cramped and 
confined that she must expand; that Belgium 
could offer no obstacle, and, as Germany was 
prepared to the highest point of efficiency, 
France could be conquered in six weeks; then, 
with Belgium and Holland naturally falling into 
the Empire, Germany would have a coast fine 
and harbors on the EngUsh Channel; that Eng- 
land was not a military nation and, under those 
conditions, could be easily invaded, but, before 
that, she would necessarily see that she must 
yield to Germany her supremacy of the seas and 
give to Germany her unquestioned right of the 
foremost place in the markets of the world. 

[145] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

Thus a barrier would be raised against an inva- 
sion of Europe by Russian barbarism, and 
German culture, intellectual, mercantile, finan- 
cial and industrial, would lead the world. They 
also said that while they wanted to keep on 
friendly terms with the United States, Germany 
could not submit to exclusion from South 
America and the Pacific Ocean because of the 
Monroe Doctrine. There is no question but 
what these learned gentlemen clearly and 
frankly expressed what is the honest belief of 
every man and woman in the German Empire. 

Now, at this critical juncture, what was the 
position of Great Britain and France? The 
internal situation in Great Britain was more 
intense and perilous than it had been in genera- 
tions. It was the belief of most Englishmen, and 
of all foreign observers, that Civil War was im- 
minent. The Ulster men had been armed and 
trained by experienced soldiers and mustered 
over one hundred thousand. They were sworn 
to resist home rule to the last man. The South- 
ern Irish, to the number of over a hundred thou- 
sand, were arming and drilling to enforce home 
rule. All efforts on the part of the leaders of the 
different parties to come to an understanding 
and peaceful solution had failed. The King had 
called them all together at Buckingham Palace 
and, after days of most earnest consultation, the 
meeting had dissolved; the government could 
find no compromise and the King despaired. 

[146] 



THE WORLD WAR 

The German Ambassador informed his govern- 
ment that civil war was inevitable. Sir Edward 
Carson, the leader of Ulster, left the conference 
and went to Belfast, where he reviewed an im- 
mense army, thoroughly armed and drilled, 
accompanied by their women as they marched, 
all singing as a battle cry the old Covenanter's 
hymn: 

"0 God, our help in ages past, 
Our hope in time to come," 

while Mr. Redmond had gone South to meet an 
equally enthusiastic and determined army. 

Nobody in England, under those conditions, 
dreamed of a European war. 

France had the largest debt with which any 
country had ever been burdened. It amounted 
to six thousand millions of dollars. France 
had to raise nearly two hundred millions of 
dollars a year in interest on her debt before she 
had anything for her army, her navy and her 
civil requirements. She had been so frightened 
as to the purposes of Germany, because of 
threats inMorocco, of Algeciras and Agadir,that 
she had strained her resources to the uttermost, 
with only thirty-eight millions of people, to keep 
an army as large as Germany with sixty-eight 
millions. She had reached her limit. The ablest 
financiers in France said to me last summer: 
''Our financial position is perilous. The strain 
of governmental requirements and increasing 

[1471 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

taxes is threatening our industrial prosperity 
and financial stability." Nobody in France, 
under those conditions, wanted war, and every- 
body looked upon its possibilities with horror. 
One of the most eminent of French statesmen 
said to me: "In our efforts to keep peace, we 
have not permitted our troops to approach 
within eight kilometers of the frontier, while 
Germany has crossed the frontier in several 
places and occupied positions of strategic im- 
portance." 

Austria, of course, was, in her diplomacy and 
international relations, controlled entirely by 
Germany. Russia had not yet recovered from 
the effects of her war with Japan. Her financial 
situation was acute. Her internal troubles 
great. There were serious strikes, accompanied 
by violence, in her factories and mines, which 
were not industrial but revolutionary. Russia 
was in no condition to declare war. 

It was this situation, in these various coun- 
tries, which misled the miUtary party in 
Germany into beheving that the time had come 
for an immediate and successful war. 

The military mind, in control of government, 
is always a peril to its peace. It knows its own 
power, but has a contempt of the forces of a 
possible enemy, and no broad, diplomatic or 
statesmanlike comprehension of the situation in 
other countries. The military party beheved 
Belgium neither could nor would offer any oppo- 

[148] 



THE WORLD WAR 

sition to the German aimies marching across Bel- 
gium to the practically undefended part, next to 
Belgium, of the French frontier. It did not 
beUeve that France could resist a successful 
invasion, and that another Sedan was certain to 
happen on the anniversary of the Sedan triumph 
of 1870. They believed that it would be im- 
possible for Russia to seriously attack the 
German frontier. They thought England en- 
tirely out of any possible interference or any 
effort to help France or to aid Belgium, because 
she had her hands full with her domestic 
troubles and possible revolution. 

So Austria was told to go ahead against 
Servia, for the Austrian Government was in a 
state of frenzy because of the assassination by 
Servians of the Archduke Ferdinand and his 
wife, the Archduke being the heir of the aged 
Emperor of Austria. 

The Austrian Emperor, after a long, remark- 
able and successful reign, during which he alone 
had been able to hold together the many con- 
flicting races and elements of the dual empire, 
was in his eighty-f oiuth year and the idol of his 
people. In a remarkable proclamation, he called 
upon them to rally to the national standards, to 
punish the people who, as he said, ''have been 
for years insulting and injuring me and my 
house." Never was there such a fateful message. 
Never were a few words weighted with such 
terrible consequences. 

[1491 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

As always, when racial and religious passions 
are stirred, the unexpected happened. Russia, 
kindi'ed in blood and religion with Servia, was 
swept by a wave embracing all classes, loyalists 
and revolutionists, patriots and anarchists. 
Grand Dukes and the peasants, in a Holy War. 
The Czar, who had not appeared publicly in 
the streets of his capital for many years, rode 
about everywhere in an open carriage, to be 
hailed by the populace as the Saviour of Father- 
land, Servian Brethren and the Orthodox 
Religion. 

Russia began to mobolize, notwithstanding 
the threat of Germany that, if she did, war would 
be declared, and Germany promptly declared 
war. Luxemburg and Belgium, though pro- 
tected by treaties, were instantly invaded by 
the German armies. France mobolized. Eng- 
land declared war, ostensibly to defend her faith 
and honor, pledged to Belgium, but equally for 
her faith pledged to France, and, above all, a 
belief that in the struggle, whether she entered 
or not, was involved the existence of her empire. 

The weight of condemnation of this frightful 
condition and situation had fallen upon the 
German Emperor. After a careful study, I do 
not believe that the responsibility rests wholly 
with him. A bit of gossip from a very high 
source, with intimate knowledge and touch with 
conditions in the German governing class, came 
to me. It was that, when the Emperor had 
[1501 



THE WORLD WAR 

secured the two hundred and fifty miUions of 
armament and had perfected the miUtary 
machine, he felt that Germany was safe. He 
then took his usual vacation on his yacht in the 
North Sea. The Crown Prince was the leader 
of the war party. He was enthusiastically 
seconded by his five brothers. The war party 
included the whole of the General Staff and had 
the sympathy of the German People of all 
classes. That the sons said: ''If you go ahead 
and get ready for war, we will help you in bring- 
ing the Emperor (the gossip said, ' the old man') 
around when he returns." When he did return, 
he was swept off his feet. 

This year is the centenary of the birth of Bis- 
marck, and of Waterloo and St. Helena for 
Napoleon. After a hundred years, most of the 
ideas which these master spirits represented are 
in death grips in the most disastrous war of the 
ages. Its result may determine for the future 
whether Napoleon and the democracy of the 
French Revolution or Bismarck and absolutism 
shall govern the world. 

This is an age of marvels. They are so won- 
derful and frequent that we are no longer 
astonished at anything. It is within the bounds 
of possibility, if not expectation, that forces 
can be found strong enough to pierce the ether 
of the universe in which move in harmony suns 
and planets and constellations. Astronomers 
say that Mars is like our earth and inhabited. 
[151] 



ON THE THBESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

If SO, the people undoubtedly worship the Prince 
of Peace. If the Martian philosopher could now 
communicate with our world, he would discover 
this astonishing situation: 

There are about one thousand six hundred 
millions of people upon the globe. Nine hundred 
millions of them are now at war, killing each other 
and destroying each other's cities, villages and 
homes. These nine hundred millions comprise 
eight-tenths of the professing Christians of the 
world. The only peoples who are not involved 
are the United States, the Republics of Central 
and South America, Spain, Holland, some of the 
wild tribes of Asia and of Central Africa, the 
Scandinavian countries and the Esquimaux. 
I do not include Mexico, which is in a state of 
Civil War. 

Is, then, Christianity a failure? I say NO, a 
thousand times, NO. God moves in mysterious 
ways His wonders to perform. He teaches the 
people full knowledge of right and wrong, and 
leaves them the largest liberty in their conduct 
and actions. They assume, with their eyes open 
and fully conscious of the consequences, the 
violation of Divine Law. The Old Testament 
History is filled with examples of the punishment 
which would have followed this kind of dis- 
obedience. 

There are plenty of illustrations in Modern 
History. The most significant is our own Civil 
War. We all knew slavery to be the sum of all 

[152] 



THE WORLD WAR 

crimes. We tolerated it and supported it, legis- 
lated for its protection and put the whole power 
of the government behind it, for nearly a cen- 
tury. Then came, swift and terrible, the con- 
flict between different civilizations and ideals, 
and, at a cost of a half million of lives, the slaves 
were emancipated. The Repubhc, freed, entered 
upon a career of liberty, humanity and pros- 
perity which, in the half century since the close 
of the Civil War, has made the United States 
the freest and most powerful of governments, 
and our people the happiest of all the nations. 

The governments of Europe have been for 
years violating Divine and Human Law. They 
have been training, beyond reason, miUions of 
their young men for war and teaching them the 
righteousness of the doctrine that ''might makes 
right." They have violated treaties which are 
as solemn and binding upon nations, as contracts 
and honorable obUgations are upon individuals. 

Passion, hatred, vindictiveness, cruelty and 
bloodthirst are working their worst, but, as in our 
Civil War, there will come, from this confhct, 
national sanity, the end of miHtarism as a 
controlhng power in government and the reign 
of the people, by whose voice alone can, there- 
after, nations be plunged into war. 

Some incidents connected with my personal 
contact with the beginning of the war may be 
illuminating. I was in Geneva with my family. 
On the first of August I went to the bank to draw 

[153] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

money and was informed, not only by that bank 
but by all others in Geneva, that they were 
paying out no money upon Letters of Credit or 
bankers' or express checks or even Bank of 
England notes. There had been no sign of war, 
and everything was still going on as usual in 
Geneva and had been the day before at Berne, 
the capital of Switzerland. I made up my mind, 
from long experience, that when bankers shut 
their doors and lock their safes, they either 
actually or psychologically know of trouble. I 
found a train left for Paris in two hours, secured 
a compartment and then informed my family. 
I was instantly up against the most serious 
crisis in my domestic life. How were two ladies 
and their servants to pack their trunks in two 
hours? The thing was impossible. Any mere 
man ought to know that this was a work not of 
hours, but of days. However, we caught the 
train. While standing in the crowd on the 
station platform, I heard a conversation which 
relieved the tension. They were two English 
maiden ladies of the spinster type seen often in 
Punch, but rarely met with. One said to the 
other, in a high key and a sharp voice, holding 
in her hand a five-pound note : *' Sarah, was there 
ever such an outrage? Here is an English bank 
note, which has been good all over the world 
since Christ came to earth, and these Swiss 
pigs won't change it." (Laughter.) This was 
the last train which left Switzerland for France 

[154] 



THE WORLD WAR 

for the next month. The French trains were all 
used by the government for the mobiHzation of 
the army. The movement of the train was 
normal, until it stopped at the first station in 
France. There was a notice on the wall, on a 
paper, about three feet square, calling all men 
between certain ages, instantly, to the colors. 
About twenty were there to take the train. The 
station master told me that notice had been 
up only one hour. At the next station, where it 
had been posted for three hours, there were five 
hundred prepared to go. They filled our train, 
until cars were added, making it so heavy that, 
instead of reaching Paris at ten o'clock that 
night, we did not arrive until five on Sunday 
morning, the 2d of August. 

They stood in the aisles so thick that move- 
ment was impossible. The women with them 
fainted and were taken into our compartment 
until we were as close as sardines in a box. 
Every time I put my head out of the door of the 
compartment for air, these recruits, taking me, 
on account of my side- whiskers, to be an English- 
man, waved their arms and yelled, ''Vive 
I'entente cordiale!" 

Similar scenes of those liable to military duty 
from the neighborhoods were taking place at 
every station, all over France. Most of these 
men, as I saw them, were in the late twenties and 
early thirties, and had begun to make a safe 
position for themselves and their families in 

[155] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

their various vocations. They represented every 
walk in Ufe, professional men, farmers, shop- 
keepers, artisans and laborers. They had 
dropped everything. I heard many instances 
where shopkeepers were miable to collect what 
was due them or pay what they owed, and their 
accmnulated and active capital dropped out of 
existence as if swallowed by an earthquake. 
Their farewells had been hasty to their families, 
but I did not hear a single regret or complaint. 
Each man thought that upon him, in a measure, 
rested the fate of his country. 

When we arrived in Paris, the government had 
taken almost all of the automobiles, taxicabs 
and cabs where the horse was able to walk. 
We finally secured a cab which was like Dr. 
OUver Wendell Holmes's famous "One Hoss 
Shay," and a horse whose bones belonged to the 
crows. The ordinary fare to the hotel, the day 
before, was two francs. The ancient driver 
demanded forty and got it. 

Though it was so early in the morning, the 
cafes were all open and the side-walk tables all 
filled with crowds of men and women. They had 
been there all night. The men, obeying the 
notice to join the colors, the women, their 
mothers, wives, sisters or sweethearts, waiting to 
bid them good-bye as their trains left, neither 
knowing if they would ever meet again. 

It was strange to see Paris, which I had left 
two weeks before, never so gay, never so 

[156] 



THE WORLD WAR 

crowded, never so brilliant, never so ideally like 
Paris at its best, while now, the stores were all 
closed, except the provision shops, the streets 
empty and a general air of a city in a state of 
siege. 

Now, as to the spirit of the people. I have 
spoken of Germany. We must remember that 
every man, woman and child in Germany, 
France, Russia, Belgium and Great Britain 
think their country absolutely right and that 
they are fighting and suffering in a Holy War. 

The old man who waited upon me at the hotel 
said : "My only son went yesterday. I am sorry 
I did not have more." I secured with difficulty 
a man 'way in the sixties as a chauffeur. He said : 
''My four sons have just left me for the war. I 
wish I was able to go myself. This means Ufe 
or death for France and for all of us. Do you 
think England will help? If she don't, we can't 
win alone." 

I met a lady whose name stands high in the 
roll of famous statesmen and soldiers of France 
for a thousand years. I never met such a 
picture of concentrated and intelhgent sacrifice 
and determination. She said: "My husband 
went to the war this morning. My brothers 
went last evening. My boy is only eight or I 
would send him. If we are beaten, France 
disappears as a Nation; our glorious past is a 
memory. We lose everything which makes life 
worth the living, and there is no future for our 

[157] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

children. If England will help, we can succeed, 
but not alone. Will England help? " This was 
the wistful cry which went up from every soldier, 
statesman and from every home in France. 

I never can forget the scene when England 
declared war and announced her loyalty and 
faith with France, Belgium and Russia. It is 
the greatest privilege which has ever come to 
men to have lived and been active participants 
in the events of the last sixty years. There 
has been no such period in recorded time. In 
liberty, humanity, social service and on the 
material side in inventions and discoveries, it 
has crystallized into achievement the dreams 
and aspirations of all the centuries. 

But it is a supreme opportunity to have felt 
and shared those emotions of all the peoples of a 
nation, and sometimes of the world, which lifted 
our common human nature into the rarer at- 
mosphere of brotherhood and hope. 

As a boy, I used to attend the camp meetings 
in the woods. The movement was in charge of 
intensely religious leaders and members. When 
the Evangelist had brought his whole congrega- 
tion, including the strangers who came from 
curiosity, to their knees, there was a moment 
when voices were uplifted and raised in the 
ecstasy of belief that Heaven had opened and 
salvation was sure. Such was the sentiment 
which swept over and uplifted the French when 
England declared her friendship and support. 

[1581 



THE WORLD WAR 

When I left England for France and Switzer- 
land, there was universal gloom. No one 
believed that Civil War could be averted. Sir 
Edward Carson in the North, and Mr. Redmond 
in the Center and South of Ireland, were marshal- 
ing their armies for the war. When I returned, a 
month afterwards, the English and the Irish, the 
Scotch and Welsh, were singing, "God save the 
King," and all parties volunteering to the colors. 

Ancient history is an interesting study. It 
amuses, interests and instructs those who have 
time to read, but arouses no interest or passion. 
Yet, there stands out one effort of heroism, 
patriotism and sacrifice which thrills and inspires 
each succeeding generation as it did the Greeks, 
three thousand years ago. It is the story of the 
Three Hundred who died at Thermopylae. So, 
when the tragedies, victories, defeats and 
settlements, after the war, have been forgotten, 
except by the student and the librarian, the boys 
in the schools and in the academies, the scholars 
in the universities, the preachers in the pulpits, 
the statesmen in the forum, will thrill and be 
thrilled by the unequalled heroism, the unparal- 
leled sacrifices and the indomitable courage of 
little Belgium. Her cities, villages and isolated 
homes have been burned and ravaged. Millions 
of her people, men, women and children, are 
starving by the roadside with no roof but the 
skies and no bed but the ground. Their govern- 
ment is in exile, but the prayers, which is all 

[159] 



ON THE THEESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

these devoted sufferers have left to give, is with 
their sons, their brothers, their husbands and 
their fathers, who are illustrating the finest 
courage of all the ages in trenches and on the 
battlefields. 

We cannot dwell too long upon the horrors of 
this war. 

When it was possible to leave Paris, the city 
was in a state of siege. It required passports, a 
certificate of residence and character from the 
landlord of your hotel, and permission from the 
pohce to leave. When my party arrived in the 
inclosure of the Prefecture of Pohce, there were 
several thousands waiting to secure these 
permits. There was only one official to grant 
them, and he took ten minutes for each applicant, 
because the form was the one used to identify 
suspicious persons. He asked and recorded the 
height of each individual, the color of the hair 
and of the eyes, the contour of the face, the 
shape of the nose. My wife has never forgiven 
him for putting on her certificate and in his 
book a nose she never had. I saw that it might 
take three days or a week to get our papers, and 
yet we were passed around the outskirts of the 
crowd and through the offices first. Our un- 
popularity was intense and the protests dis- 
agreeable from the angry crowd. How did we 
do it? I can only say I was born in Peekskill, 
Westchester County, on the Hudson, and that 
explains the trick. (Laughter.) 

[1601 



THE WORLD WAR 

We found a train, leaving at ten in the 
evening, but not scheduled. By the same 
"Peekskill" methods, we secured a compart- 
ment, and entered the trainyard with the mail 
wagons. We should have been at Boulogne in 
four hours, but did not arrive until five the next 
morning. There were no vehicles, and we 
tramped in the rain, leaving our baggage behind, 
for forty minutes, until we reached the pier. 
We were compelled to remain there in the rain 
eight hours before we were permitted on board 
the Channel Boat. The reason given by the 
officers of the boat was that nobody had ever 
been permitted to come on board until after the 
decks were swabbed, and the decks had never, 
during forty years, been swabbed before twelve 
o'clock. The most hidebound, conservative 
"Stand patter" in the crowd became a progres- 
sive. I did not stand the whole time, because, 
for an hour, I found a reserved seat on the step 
of a freight car. When, finally, we were per- 
mitted to board the boat, there was a rush as if 
for Ufe, though we all knew she would not sail 
for two hours. Most of the men carried suit- 
cases and traveling bags, with which they merci- 
lessly banged those ahead. The situation was 
relieved, however, when I heard a weary voice 
behind me say, "My God, Julia, only to think 
that we left Pittsburgh for this!" (Laughter.) 
England, with its welcome and hospitality, its 
air of peace, security and content, its uninter- 
[161] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

rupted daily life in every department, business, 
social, amusements and Sunday normal, was a 
wonderful relief and gratification. The Ameri- 
cans who deserve the greatest credit were the 
thousands of men and women, mostly school 
teachers, whose tickets were worthless and their 
money gone. Their courage and patiencewere be- 
yond praise. The American Cormnittee for reUef 
to our countrymen and countrywomen in London 
and Paris performed most intelligent and helpful 
service in sustaining and sending home the needy. 

Our Ambassadors and Diplomatic Represen- 
tatives in the war zone have won high praise and 
deserve all honor. This is especially true of 
Ambassador Herrick in Paris, Page in London, 
and Van Dyke at the Hague, Gerard in Berlin, 
Penfield in Vienna, and Whitlock in Brussels. 
I have no doubt the others in the war zone did 
splendidly, but their work did not come under 
my observation. 

I heard a delightful story about one of the 
diplomats whose genius for diplomacy had been 
discovered by the unerring judgment of Mr. 
Bryan, though hidden from his neighbors. It 
was said that his wife was asked how they en- 
joyed their new honors. She answered: "It's 
all very lovely, but people are too kind. We 
scarcely ever went out at home, but my hus- 
band, poor dear, since we have been here, has 
not had his dress coat off his back or his knife 
out of his mouth." (Laughter.) 

[1621 



THE WORLD WAR 

There is salvation, even in the midst of war 
tragedies, in the sense and practice of humor. 
All the combatants who heard of it, whether 
Allies or Germans, were laughing. It seems the 
Burgomaster, Max, of Brussels, is a confirmed 
joker. When the German Army took possession 
of the city, the General commanding ordered the 
Burgomaster to come to his headquarters. 
When the Burgomaster entered and was as- 
signed his seat opposite the General, the General 
took his revolver out of his belt and placed it on 
the table with the muzzle towards the Burgo- 
master and said, ''Sir, I am now ready for 
business." The Burgomaster pulled out his 
stylographic pen and placed it on the table, 
with the pen pointing towards the General, and 
answered, ''General, so am I." (Laughter.) 

What of the future? The war will end as 
suddenly as it began. The parties to any settle- 
ment will be so full of the passions, vindictive- 
ness and revenges of this most brutal and de- 
structive of all the contests of history, that they 
can make a peace only upon terms which will 
give time, rest and recuperation for a renewal 
of the fighting. We must be a party to this 
settlement, and upon us devolves the gravest 
responsibihty. 

The public opinion of the world has been 
effective in averting a serious crisis. It pre- 
vailed in the peace between the Balkan States 
and Turkey, and the Balkan States themselves, 
[163] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

which prevented an unminent European war. 
But the United States has the only pubUc 
opinion which will have influence with either 
side. The South and Central American re- 
publics have been too recently in revolution. In 
Mexico Huerta has been deposed and exiled, 
and in his place is general chaos. Spain is too 
nearly related, and Italy too closely involved, 
with China a negligible quantity in the affairs 
of the world. All the hostile nations are earnest- 
ly arguing their claims, their rights and the 
rectitude of their action in the American press 
and through every mediimi of American opinion. 

A wonderful opportunity has come to the 
United States for the expansion of its commerce 
in South America and the Orient. It is a duty as 
well as an opportunity, for these people require 
a large number of necessities which they neither 
produce nor manufacture and which have come 
to them from the belligerent nations. But in 
occupying this field we will act in the broadest 
spirit of comity. When peace is declared and 
the warring nations, exhausted and demoralized, 
are reorganizing their industries for the rescue 
of their people, we will welcome them to an 
open door in the markets of the world. 

It would be a fearful calamity if the efforts, 
subtle and direct, to involve the United States 
in this war, were successful. It is the duty of all 
our people to support President Wilson in the 
maintenance of our neutrality. 

[ 164 1 



THE WORLD WAR 

But our largest and most comprehensive re- 
sponsibility is to impress upon the negotiators, 
the victor and the vanquished, that, for the first 
time in the history of the world, an agreement for 
disarmament can be made. It must not be left 
in the power of a class to declare war, but that 
must be the right only of the sovereign people. 
The Hague Tribunal can be so enlarged that it 
will become an international parliament to 
which must be submitted all disputes between 
governments, and with an international force 
on sea and land to compel acquiescence to its 
decisions and decrees. Then out of this war will 
come blessings never dreamed of as possible. 
Its sacrifices, slaughter, ruin and untold suffer- 
ings will be forgotten in the happiness and hope 
which will come from the era of Peace on Earth 
and Good Will toward Men. 

One of the most important lessons of this war 
to us is necessity of preparedness, preparedness 
for attack and preparedness to prevent any 
nation thinking of attacking our country, 
preparedness as an insurance against war and an 
assurance of peace. The fact that a few far- 
sighted statesmen were able to persuade the 
Socialists of France to allow her an army of 
seven hundred and fifty thousand men fully 
equipped with eveiy modern engine of war is 
all that stopped the German drive which would 
have captured Paris and brought France into 
complete subjection. Instead of enjoying the 

[165 1 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

fruits and prospects of her marvelous demon- 
stration of unity, patriotism and sacrifice, she 
would be paying enormous indemnities and 
forced tributes, and her people in the awful 
conditions of the Belgians and the Poles. Had 
England believed war possible and possessed an 
adequate army, there would have been no war. 

Mr. Bryan says the time to prepare is after 
the invasion has begun, then the farmers with 
their shotguns will overcome shrapnel shells and 
lydite bombs and the machine guns and drive 
the disciphned veterans of the enemy into the 
sea, shooting them in masses from behind 
fences and through the spokes of the wheels of 
their Ford cars. 

Secretary Bryan's sure remedy is to build 
twelve broad macadamized highways across the 
Continent. Then, if the enemy gained a foot- 
hold, citizens and automobiles could concentrate 
from all over the country. But it does not occur 
to our champion pacificist that the armored 
cars of the enemy would sweep these highways, 
and, if fired on, would burn every house and 
shoot every man armed or unarmed within 
miles of the roads on either side. 

It is not difficult to draw the line between 
aggressive and defensive preparedness. There 
is a wide difference between militarism and a 
disciphned nucleus on land and a force always 
ready and large enough on the sea to protect our 
homes, our commerce, our coasts and our ports. 

[1661 



THE WORLD WAR 

At the conclusion of Mr. Depew's remarks, 
Mr. Choate spoke as follows : 

Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen: In 
the first place, let me correct a false impression. 
I am not going to make an address. Anybody 
who undertakes to make an address after an 
oration from Mr. Depew — why, it is Hke grind- 
ing on a hand organ after an overture on the 
colossal organ of the cathedral, and I can't do 
it. I speak by the card, and I am only going to 
do what I was asked to do — make a few re- 
marks; and the card says ''Tea at five o'clock." 
It now wants ten minutes of five, and the Presi- 
dent told me that under no circumstances was 
the audience to remain in this room, or anything 
to be said, after five o'clock, and tea is the very 
appropriate inamediate sequel to one of Mr. 
Depew's speeches (laughter), because it is like 
his speeches — the thing that cheers but not 
inebriates. 

And then, Mr. Bowen had promised to make 
a speech. It has been a Uttle disappointing; 
his speech was altogether too short. When he 
speaks it is always to the purpose. I class him 
always with the sons of Zebedee, as one of the 
Boanerges, because whatever he does is always 
a success. Didn't he set his hand last year to 
raising $65,000, so as to buy the adjoining 
building, and give us a room for a fit audi- 
torium? He did it in less than three months. 
And he has got it locked up somewhere 

[1671 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

(laughter) drawing compound interest. And I 
am sure he will never call upon us to meet 
again in this room. These gentlemen on the 
platform have all got cold feet. (Laughter.) 
They are all dreading bronchitis or pneumonia, 
for while they have their backs to the wall, the 
wall is made up of nothing but windows. 

Now I have a duty to perfonn this afternoon. 
I was brought here for a special purpose, and 
that is to move the initiation of the Honorable 
Chauncey M. Depew into the fraternity of 
honorary members of The New York Genea- 
logical and Biographical Society. (Applause.) 
I believe I have been authorized and instructed 
to tender that distinguished honor to him and 
to welcome him to the Brotherhood, and to put 
to the vote of this company whether he shall 
be admitted. Those in favor? 

I heard no noes. The vote was unanimous. 

Now it was my pleasure to make the acquaint- 
ance of the Kaiser, William II, a good many 
years ago in London. I met him there occa- 
sionally, but he was always on his good be- 
havior, because we met in the presence of his 
grandmother or his uncle Edward. And I 
never supposed he was going to be such a scourge 
to mankind as some people now think he is. 
What I think myself I won't say. I am bound 
by the statute of neutrality and by the inter- 
pretation of that statute as laid down by our 
distinguished President at Washington. 

[1681 



THE WORLD WAR 

I have been perfectly delighted to hear 
from Mr. Depew his experience as a refugee. 
(Laughter.) I have heard a great many of 
the refugees, and they all told the same story 
before. I never heard one that varied until 
he spoke this afternoon. They all had the 
same experience, and each one seemed to think 
that he or she was the only one that had had 
any experience at all. But his experience was 
most dehghtful and most instructive. 

Now, let me speak about the spirit of the 
English people. It is perfectly magnificent the 
courage and the spirit of endurance and hope 
with which they are bearing the terrible struggle 
in which they are engaged, and especially the 
mothers of England, and the women of England. 
I don't think anything more grand has ever 
been witnessed on the face of the earth. 

Let me give you one or two instances of how 
the famihes, the mothers and the fathers take 
it. I saw by the paper the other day that one 
of the four sons of an old friend of mine in 
England, a very distinguished woman, had 
been killed on the field of battle, and I wrote 
her a letter of sympathy and condolence, and I 
immediately received a reply which was per- 
fectly magnificent. I wish I had it here to 
read to you. She says, "Yes, we had four sons, 
three in the army and one in the navy. The 
one that you write about is dead, and we are 
very proud of it, and we are glad to have been 

[169] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

able to give him to the service of his country. 
Another one has been taken prisoner six weeks 
ago, and we have not the least idea whether 
he is dead or alive; and the third is wounded; 
and the fourth is safe on one of the ships of 
war that has not yet encountered the Germans. 
But we count it as a very great prize, a very 
splendid reward to say that we have been able 
thus to devote all our sons if necessaiy to the 
service of the Allies in this cause." 

Well, then, I heard another story from the 
lips of the man himself, the father of six sons. 
He said he had four sons already in the service, 
and he was very proud of it. The fifth son was 
twelve years old and at school, and he came 
to him one day with tears in his eyes and he 
says, ''Father, now talking as man to man 
(laughter), was there ever anything meaner 
than that the Inspectors turned me down and 
refused to let me enter the service simply 
because I was only twelve years old?" No! 
You may depend upon it that England is 
determined never to submit or jdeld, and she 
never will submit or yield until she has reached 
the point where she can say that this devil of 
militarism has been so completely subdued that 
it will never trouble the world again. 

We met at the Hague eight years ago, on 

the 15th of June, 1907, for the purpose of 

devising measures that would preserve the 

peace of the world for all time. We agreed to a 

[1701 



THE WORLD WAR 

great many things there, and everything seemed 
very auspicious at the time. The gates of the 
Temple of Janus were closed — closed was it, 
or open? I never can remember which. 
(Laughter.) At any rate, the fact was that 
peace existed throughout the world. There 
was not a single nation, savage or civilized, 
that was engaged in war, and so it continued 
during the four months that our deUberations 
continued. 

The representative of the Kaiser was there, 
and his conduct seemed a little queer. In the 
first place Germany refused to enter into the 
conference at all unless it was upon the under- 
standing that the question of the suppression 
of armaments was not pressed, and the Enghsh 
representative made a statement, as he was 
permitted to do, of the reasons why Great 
Britain thought that the suppression of arma- 
ments ought to be agreed upon by the nations, 
and our delegation said amen to that, and the 
subject was laid aside. Well, then, all through 
the conference there was evidently a hidden 
struggle, not manifested by words at any 
moment, on the great question whether the 
British Channel was to be kept open or made 
possible to be closed; Germany upon the one 
side, and Great Britain upon the other; Great 
Britain wanting to keep the Channel open so 
as to permit the feeding of her population 
under all circumstances, whenever war might 

[1711 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

arise, however long it might be protracted, 
Germany wishing to be permitted at any time 
to make all possible efforts to close it if she 
could. She tried to close it the other day by 
getting down to Calais, but she never got 
there, and she never will. (Applause.) 

Mr. Depew is right in saying that the future 
is ours — I've got two minutes more. — Let me 
say that : The future is ours, and I can see only 
two possible benefits that will arise to us from 
this terrible conflict. One is that we shall be 
able to serve as peacemakers when the time 
comes. I don't think the time has come yet. 
I was glad to see that even the New York Peace 
Society said yesterday in an address that it was 
not time to talk about peace yet. And we shall 
be the one great — recognized as the one great 
power in the world, and we shall be called upon 
I have no doubt, to advise and assist and per- 
haps to suggest the terms of peace. And that 
will be a very great service that we can render 
to mankind. 

And, then, another thing is that this war is 
going to make us all a great deal poorer, and 
it will put an end to some of that frightful 
extravagance and luxury now depreciating the 
character and quahty of our young men and 
women, especially in New York. (Applause.) 
Poker and bridge and the tango are too much 
for the education of our young people, and I 
think that all such extravagances as these, as 

[1721 



THE WORLD WAR 

a part of the education of American youth, will 
be put an end to. 

Now the time has come — I see you all look 
a Uttle thirsty. (Laughter.) The teapot is 
boiUng, and if I trespassed upon your patience 
a moment longer, I should be violating the 
instructions of the President, and my oath of 
office. (Applause.) 



[173 



Dinner Given by the Lotos Club in Honor of 
Ambassador Myron T. Herrick, January 
9, 1915. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

When I was a member of the United States 
Senate and the constitutional power of that 
body to be consulted in the matter of appoint- 
ments for Federal Offices was recognized as 
effective by the President, I called at the White 
House and requested that an Ambassador, a 
New Yorker and a constituent who had per- 
formed brilliant service and won international 
fame, might be continued for another term. 
The President said: ''I recognize, fully, the 
conspicuous ability and distinguished services 
of your ambassador, but I have a theory in 
regard to diplomatic appointments. They are 
the only way in which the government can 
recognize, reward and decorate eminent citi- 
zens. In England, they grant baronets and 
peerages. In France, the Legion of Honor. 
In Germany, the Orders of Different Colored 
Eagles. We have nothing but diplomatic 
positions abroad. So, my idea is to recall all 
our ambassadors and ministers; they can still 
enjoy at home the rank, socially, of having 
held these places and other worthy citizens 
[174] 



LOTOS CLUB SPEECH 

who will appreciate the honor can have it 
conferred upon them." "In my judgment," 
continued the President, "these positions are 
more ornamental than useful, and the principal 
business can be carried on by cable between 
the Secretary of State and the foreign office of 
any country with whom we have trouble." 
From my own experience and observation, 
during the half century I have been going 
abroad, I know the President was mistaken. 
Services to our country, of incalculable value 
in settling disputes, avoiding misunderstand- 
ings and preventing dangerous complications 
and possibly war, have been rendered by our 
representatives abroad. Their tact and diplo- 
macy and the incalculable influence of personal 
negotiation have proved the value of the office. 

I remember well when "my Lord, that means 
war," said by Charles Francis Adams to Lord 
John Russell, Foreign Minister of Great Britain, 
prevented England's interference on behalf of 
the Southern Confederacy and saved, for a time, 
if not for all time, the cause of the Union. 

Americans recall, with pride, the brilliant 
work in the cause of international good-will 
and the preservation of our peace, which has 
just rounded its hundredth year between the 
United States and Great Britain, of Lowell, 
Phelps, Lincoln, Choate and Reid. 

We have with us, as our guest, Ambassador 
Herrick, the most conspicuous refutation of the 

[175 1 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

President's thought and illustration of what can 
be done for his country and his countrymen 
by an American Ambassador. 

When I look at the large number of ex-am- 
bassadors who have come here to join in this 
tribute to Ambassador Herrick, I think I must 
assert my claim to be the Dean of the Diplomatic 
Corps of the United States. 

Fifty years ago, as I approached the Post 
Office in my native village of Peekskill, I 
saw an unusually large and interested crowd 
gathered there. The postmaster was a true 
type of that functionary, in every village in 
the country, who becomes popular with the 
neighborhood by revealing to everybody all the 
secrets which come to him from an inspection 
of the mail. He was showing to the crowd a 
huge envelope, bearing the seal and superscrip- 
tion of the State Department and addressed to 
me. No such document had ever been seen in 
the village. It was my commission as Minister 
Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to 
Japan and a letter from Mr. Seward, then Secre- 
tary of State, requesting me to come to Wash- 
ington as soon as possible and receive my 
instructions. I was not an appHcant for the 
office. Except from Commodore Perry's report, 
I had never heard of Japan. I consulted the 
wise men of the village. The Principal of the 
Academy said there was nothing in his library 
on the subject. The druggist, around whose 
[1761 



LOTOS CLUB SPEECH 

stove gathered in the evenmg the elder states- 
men of the town, said he had nothing in his 
bottles from that country, and Colonel Williams, 
the general arbiter of everything and the most 
important man in the neighborhood, the pro- 
prietor and landlord of the Eagle Hotel, at which 
General Washington had stopped during the 
Revolutionary War, remarked that nothing 
with that label had ever been called for by any 
of his guests. 

When I reached Washington and expressed 
some doubt to Mr. Seward about such an abrupt 
and entire change in my career, he sent me to 
see Mr. BurUngame at Willard's Hotel. Mr. 
Burhngame had been our Minister to China and 
had made such an impression on the Chinese 
Government that they had appointed him at 
the head of their first mission to the United 
States and European Governments. I sent up 
my card. He received me immediately. He 
had just come from his bath and was shaving. 
Waving the lather brush in one hand and the 
razor in the other, he addressed to me an oration 
on the importance of the ofl&ce and the delights 
of the East. Among other things, he said, 
"Do you think, sir, that you are going among 
a savage people? They have a literature which 
was classic when your forefathers were painted 
savages. They will give you a palace to live 
in and a garden so superbly cultivated that it 
would have excited the envy of Shenstone. 
[1771 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

And that you may not feel solitary and 
neglected, so far away from home, they will 
assign as your personal attendants and for the 
care of your palace, one hundred of the most 
beautiful maidens in the world." 

When I returned to my room, I found about 
fifty New Yorkers there, waiting to hear my 
report. The next morning, all of them, in case 
I resigned, were applicants for the position. 

The progress of fifty years and its finest 
illustration can be condensed in a paragraph 
about Japan. At the time of my appointment, 
it took six months to go there or to receive a 
letter from there. Now the voyage can be 
made in two weeks; and when Mr. Edison made 
his telegraphic circuit of the globe with him 
at one wire and I at the other, I sent and received 
a message from Japan in twenty minutes. At 
that time Japan was under a dual government 
and autocracy; its fleet were junks; its army 
wearing armor and carrying spears and bows and 
arrows. To-day it has a constitution, a repre- 
sentative government, a free press, schools and 
colleges and one of the best-equipped and most 
perfectly armed navies and armies in the world. 
The fear of its invasion is sufficient to be the 
most potential stock in trade of the poUticians 
of the Pacific Coast. 

I was in Paris at the time of the declaration 
of the present war. I saw the mobilization of 
the troops, Paris in a state of siege, stores 
[178] 



LOTOS CLUB SPEECH 

closed, the hotels closing and the city which I 
had left, not long before, never so gay, never so 
attractive, never so much the Paris which draws 
all the world, changed to gloom, empty streets 
and alarm. There were ten thousand Ameri- 
cans there anxious to get home, the majority 
of them without means, because the return 
passage which they had paid for was on German 
ships and could not be transferred to others. 
All of them were short of money and the banks 
would not respond. This was the opportunity 
for an American Ambassador in the complete 
confidence of the French Government and pos- 
sessing unusual gifts as a business man, organ- 
izer, executive and tactician. Mr. Herrick 
filled all those requirements. He immediately 
appointed a committee to relieve the situation 
and help the American tourists. He was the 
busiest man in Europe at the Embassy, but he 
found time to attend the meetings of the com- 
mittee and solve problems which were beyond 
their power. These thousands of Americans 
could not get out of Paris without a passport, 
and there were not enough printed passports, 
in all Europe, to meet the demand. Americans 
very rarely need a passport and so few know 
what they contain. Suppose our genial Presi- 
dent, Mr. Frank Lawrence, was the applicant. 
The passport would recite: Height, 5 ft. 11; 
hair, just tinged with gray; temperament, 
sanguine; age, he don't look it; occupation, a 

[179] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

lawyer, but the most tactful and eloquent 
frescoer of eminent gentlemen who are guests 
of the Lotos Club. Mr. Herrick would solve 
the passport difficulty by putting on a sheet of 
embassy paper: "Honorable Frank R. Lawrence, 
President of the Lotos Club, which is the 
American Society of Literature and Art," 
attach a seal as large as the palm of your hand, 
colored red and duly stamped with "Myron T. 
Herrick, Ambassador of the United States," 
at the bottom and its presentation to French 
officialdom would lead to the extension of 
every French courtesy to expedite Mr. Law- 
rence's passage home. 

I went with Ambassador Herrick to a recep- 
tion by President Poincar^. There was gathered 
all the Cabinet. The greeting of Mr. Herrick 
was such as is seldom bestowed upon a repre- 
sentative of a foreign power. It combined the 
highest consideration and the greatest degree of 
personal regard. But Mr. Herrick's influence 
extended beyond the borders of France. He 
was enabled to get special trains which brought 
his stranded coimtrymen and countrywomen 
from cure resorts in Austria, Germany and 
Belgium. 

I refrain, gentlemen, from giving you my 
experiences and adventures as a refugee. Fifty 
thousand of them, who have been boring their 
friends to death in all parts of our country, have 
been taken in by the Ananias club. Some of 
[180] 



LOTOS CLUB SPEECH 

the things which they tell may have happened, 
if not to themselves to others. 

I have always been a student of the careers of 
successful men. In early Ufe, to find the secret, 
later, because they are most interesting. I 
have known personally nearly every man of 
national reputation during the last half century. 
It is a curious fact that none of them arrived at 
the goal for which they started, but climbed 
much higher. Abraham Lincoln, when he 
was splitting rails, thought safety, comfort 
and content was to be found in keeping store. 
A mighty revolution needed him, found him 
and he saved his country from the revolution. 
Mr. Herrick was a farmer's boy. To secure a 
college education, he had to work his way 
through and find the money himself. Teaching 
a country school during vacation, boarding 
around and returning to college with an im- 
paired digestion and sleepless nights occasioned 
by many occupants of the beds to which he had 
been transferred, did not appeal to young 
Herrick. The most difficult, dangerous and 
profitable occupation of that time was selling 
lightning rods. A canvasser was generally 
warned off the farm with a shot gun. Herrick 
was successful. He was destined for a lawyer 
but almost created the profession of a business 
doctor. Some business doctors take a healthy 
plant and when they get through with it the 
investors have nothing and they are rich. I 

[1811 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

am a sufferer. I am a bondholder in the Rock 
Island Railroad. 

Mr. Herrick, as a business doctor, would take 
several railroads which were streaks of rust and 
total failures because they began nowhere and 
ended nowhere. He would bring them together, 
supply the necessary links, persuade capital to 
invest and at the end return the property to the 
original investors and the subsequent bond- 
holders and stockholders in a solvent and pros- 
perous condition. He would take hold of a 
mining proposition which had merit but was a 
losing proposition, or a failing and decaying 
business, cut out the rust, inject new life and 
restore them to the productive energies of the 
country. 

But, a man's interest through life grows 
deeper as he grows older in the surroundings of 
his childhood and youth. Herrick saw that the 
American farms had been exhausted by wasteful 
management. I remember when the Genesee 
Valley, in our State, produced thirty bushels of 
wheat to the acre, and now it can raise none. 
Thirty years ago Minnesota easily turned out 
its thirty bushels per acre, and now only fifteen. 
Unless this exhaustion can be arrested, the time 
is near when the United States will be dependent 
upon other countries for food. 

Herrick having become the experienced and 
educated business doctor, saw that this was 
the most urgent necessity of American states- 

[182] 



LOTOS CLUB SPEECH 

manship. The governorship of Ohio appealed 
to him because there was an opportunity to 
help the farms. The Secretaryship of the 
Treasurer, which-f McKinley wanted him to 
take and for which he had special training and 
which was a great honor, did not appeal to him 
because there was no connecting Unk between 
the treasury and the farm. But, when he was 
offered the Ambassadorship to France, he 
accepted immediately because of the greater 
opportunity with the power of the position and 
its close relation to governments abroad. It 
offered a rare opportunity to find out how it is 
that the fields of France and Germany, which 
were cultivated in the time of Julius Caesar, 
yield more to the acre now, after two thousand 
years, than they did then; and yield from two 
to five times as much as does the already 
partially used virgin soil of America, after less 
than a hundred years. 

I knew very well Elihu B. Washburn, who, 
as Minister to France in 71, during the Franco- 
Prussian War, forty-four years ago, had a 
similar experience to Mr. Herrick. He, alone, 
like Mr. Herrick, of all the representatives to 
European Governments, remained in Paris, 
and he not only protected his countrymen but 
those of other nationalities. He would have 
been nominated for President of the United 
States, except for the overshadowing fame and 
popularity of General Grant. Now, there is no 

[183] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

great overshadowing and popular figure in our 
public life. There is a great party looking for 
a leader. There are but few capable or possible 
for that position. Mark Twain once said, 
having tried it himself, that a man who could 
sell lightning rods could do anything and get 
anywhere. Herrick sold Hghtning rods! 



184 



Speech as Presiding Officer at the Dinner 
Given by the Union League Club, of New 
York, to Mr. Samuel W. Fairchild on His 
Retirement From the Presidency of the 
Club, Wednesday, January 20, 1915. 

Gentlemen: 

This is a rare occasion. It is one of the few 
in which we can participate where there are no 
axes to grind, no selfish purposes to accomplish 
and no ambitions to promote. It is simply an 
unusually large gathering of his fellow members 
to greet our President upon his voluntary re- 
tirement from office, to express our regrets at his 
departure, to tell him that he is and has been 
one of the best Presidents ever, and to assure 
him, collectively, what he aheady knows of us 
individually, that we regard him as one of the 
choicest of good fellows. 

In this evening's entertainment, if I may mix 
metaphors, there is no sand in the sugar, no 
fly in the amber and no flaws in the diamond. 
Nine-tenths of our membership, of nearly two 
thousand, want office. There are not enough 
to go around, and we experience the difficulty 
which has so torn the generous heart and 
distracted the active brain of a great function- 
ary, Mr. Bryan, in finding places "for worthy 
workers." 

[185] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

But Mr. Fairchild, for ten years, was a 
member of the two most important committees 
of the Club. Elected and re-elected without 
any protest against this dual relationship and 
this double honor. While occupying these two 
important and powerful positions of a member 
of the Executive Committee and of the House 
Committee, he also became by acclamation a 
Vice-President. 

Here was a situation which has never before 
existed in our organization. The Vice-Presi- 
dency in a railroad or industrial corporation is 
one of great importance in their operations; 
but in politics, especially in the United States 
Government, and in club life, it is usually a 
comfortable but hopeless tomb The one effort 
of a Vice-President is to restrain himself from 
praying for the resignation or death of the 
President. But, here again, comes the anomaly 
and also the distinction of Mr. Fairchild's 
official connection with the Club. Again, by a 
unanimous vote of his fellow members, he was 
rescued from the Vice-Presidency and made 
our President. There are two kinds of Presi- 
dents — one enjoys the honor and leaves the work 
to the various committees ; the other is an active 
member of all the committees and, without 
seeming to do so, really does all the work. 
He energizes every department, his executive 
genius is felt in the library; in the pubUc 
utterances of the Club, in the reading room, 

[1861 



UNION LEAGUE CLUB SPEECH 

in the caf^ and the restaurant. He dissipates 
clouds of criticism before they become a storm. 
He diffuses harmony in the family, bridges over 
difficulties and diverts dangers, clashes and crises. 

Here was particularly the successful effort of 
Mr. Fairchild. When all other efforts failed to 
stem the rising tide of protest or factional fight, 
our President would give a dinner to the com- 
batants. He appreciated the soothing and 
melting quahties of this function when the host 
is equal to the occasion, and Fairchild's dinner 
was always a success. 

This is the most difficult Club in the United 
States and at the same time one of the most 
enjoyable. It was founded as a poUtical 
organization, but as its social functions and 
opportunities became equal to the best social 
clubs in the country, there came a hot strife be- 
tween members who wished it to be the best 
of social organizations, and that only, and 
members who wished to preserve and continue 
its early principles and traditions. The social 
member was a frequent visitor. He had his 
reserved place in the dining room and his alcove 
in the quiet of the library. He was the bene- 
ficiary of that axiom of club hfe, that two 
thousand men pay dues that two hundred may 
have all the comforts of a home and the rest 
a semi-occasional view. 

The monthly meeting, which in time of hot 
politics drew a large attendance, filled and over- 

[187] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

flowed the sanctuary to the exclusion of the 
Saints, who resented the intrusion of these 
members. All Presidents have been troubled 
with this situation. It has been the distinction 
of Fairchild that, with the aid of the cinemato- 
graph and Chautauqua lectures, he has kept 
the Club up to the highest social eflficiency, and 
at the same time alert and ahve to its pubUc 
duties. 

The great ambition of every college man is to 
be the oldest living graduate. He is the pet 
and toast at all alumni gatherings and has a 
distinction which cannot be taken away from 
him. The one future of an ex-President of this 
Club is to hope to live to be the oldest in point 
of service of the living ex-Presidents. Choate 
is that now and receives, when he honors us by 
his presence, the distinction which is so justly 
his due. 

Fairchild is so young and has so sanguine a 
temperament that he will certainly outlive us 
all who are ex-Presidents and for many years 
serenely hold this enviable position. But, 
when he approaches a hundred years of age, he 
should so cultivate his memory that he does not 
fall into the weakness of old age, which is loss 
of memory. The oldest living graduate of 
Yale College, for many years, was Mr. Wick- 
ham, uncle of the one-time Mayor of New York. 
The Mayor gave his venerable relative, who 
was ninety-six, a reception. At the reception 

[188] 



UNION LEAGUE CLUB SPEECH 

Governor Hoadley of Ohio said, "Mr. Wickham, 
my mother was a bridesmaid at yom* wedding." 
The old gentleman asked her name and the 
Governor told him. "Ah, yes," said the old 
gentleman, " I remember her now. She was 
bridesmaid for my second wife. I don't re- 
member that wife's name, but she was a good 
wife and a very fine woman." 

It is a curious fact that while dinners have 
been in order for Governors and ex-Governors, 
ex-Senators and Congressmen, military and 
naval heroes, as well as retiring and incoming 
officials of every kind of organization, literary, 
industrial, social and artistic, there never has 
been a pubhc dinner participated in by citizens 
from every State to an ex-President of the 
United States. I can imagine no reason, except 
that he drops from the pinnacle, the highest 
pinnacle, and before his fall is arrested, he is 
below the average citizen. The average citi- 
zen looks upon his ex-President with curious 
and unpractical eyes. He does not want him 
to practice law as a lawyer, because he says, 
on account of the President's position and the 
fact that he has appointed so many judges, 
that is unfair. He does not want him to go into 
business, because that lowers the dignity of a 
place for which the citizen has the greatest 
respect. He has a curious feehng, though he 
is the most practical of men and thinkers in 
other respects, that an ex-President of the 

[1891 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

United States can live on air. But, if the ex- 
President indulges in hot air, the citizen is 
offended. 

The first public banquet given in honor of a 
retiring official, in our history, was the one 
which Governor CUnton of the State of New 
York gave in honor of General Washington, the 
day after the evacuation of New York by the 
British in November, 1783, and this was given 
at Fraunces' Tavern, which happily is preserved. 
The next day, at the same tavern, Washington 
bade farewell to his officers, and it remains one 
of the most affecting scenes in our history. 
Washington retired to Mount Vernon, hoping 
for private life, but was speedily recalled to the 
Presidency of the young Republic. 

Now, one hundred and thirty-one years after- 
wards, in another and humbler sphere, we have 
an historical parallel. Our President retires to 
the island which he owns off the coast of Vir- 
ginia, where he is the most expert fisherman 
and the best shot. 

Things are changing rapidly in our public 
affairs. Sense and sanity are taking the place 
of the chaos of the new freedom. The wreck of 
the civil service by the Secretary of State 
and the rhetoric of the President to the faithful 
at Indianapolis are making clear the way for 
republican harmony and repubUcan success. 
With a personality so attractive, a tactfulness 
so rare, a common sense and executive ability 
[1901 



UNION LEAGUE CLUB SPEECH 

SO remarkable, governorships and Congress, by 
the mandate of his fellow-citizens, will draw our 
friend Fairchild from his island on the coast. 

Now, my friends, I speak for you and the 
rest of the nine hundred not present who joined 
in a souvenir to perpetuate this manifestation 
of our respect for our retiring President and 
our love for the man. It is by his wish that 
it is not a picture to hang on the wall, or a cup 
to adorn his table, but a personal reminder to 
be always with him, and, whether at home or 
abroad, in the domestic circle, amidst cares of 
business or the distractions of society, to recall 
the most enjoyable years of his career and the 
devoted friends who made them so. A ring is 
associated with engagement and marriage, the 
most sacred and intimate events in life; it is 
worn on the left hand and nearest the heart, 
whose pulsations send the bfood under it in 
continuing circles until the end. This ring, 
which I now give you, is both collective and 
individual, all joined, but as you recall your 
friends, you can reincarnate each and the pleas- 
ure he had in this token. 



191 



Classes at Wellesley College Formerly Elected 
Some University Man to Membership 
of the Class. The Class of '90, of Two 
Hundred Young Women, Elected SENA- 
TOR DEPEW. The Following is the 
Letter Written by Him to the Class at Its 
Twenty-Fifth Anniversary, June 7, 1915. 

Dear Miss Barrows: 

It is rarely in the experience of a long life 
that so gracious and grateful a message has 
come to me as that from you on behalf of my 
classmates at Wellesley. My completed eighty- 
one years have been blessed with sixty of activ- 
ities in many departments, social, hterary, 
pohtical, economic and financial. 

That next year our class of 1856 will celebrate 
at Yale the sixtieth anniversary of its gradua- 
tion is very interesting. Its work is largely a 
memory, and only sixteen survive, but the 
twenty-fifth anniversary of my class at Wellesley 
is a suggestion of perpetual youth. 

I recall with intense pleasure the (to me) 
memorable visit to you. I happened that day 
to be at Concord, New Hampshire, in the 
morning, having dehvered an address at St. 
Paul's School. I asked the stationmaster the 
quickest way to Wellesley, and with the curi- 

[1921 



WELLESLEY COLLEGE LETTER 

osity of his Yankee race he inquired, ''What are 
you going there for?" I repHed, ''To visit my 
classmates." Whereupon the shocked descend- 
ant of a long line of Puritan ancestors said 
severely, "You are all off; that is a gals' school." 
But from the moment of my reception at the 
depot until my departure my independence 
ceased and my individuality was merged. The 
authoritative way in which the President of 
the class assigned me my seat in the carriage 
and indicated my place in reviewing the games, 
as well as the presentation to the Faculty, gave 
me a sense of my inferiority and toleration as a 
mere man never equalled in my experience in 
my family. In the haste to reach you a lunch 
was impossible, and a healthy and hungry man, 
after twelve hours' fast, was ushered in to the 
class supper. My classmates were happy and 
confident that they had met every requirement 
of the occasion in giving me sponge cake and 
ice-cream. I am sure that those of you who 
have married have changed your views of that 
evening as to man's appetite. 

Few classes of any college have been priv- 
ileged to live and work in such a marvelous 
quarter of a century. It condenses more of 
everything which makes history, adds to the 
volume of human achievements in discovery 
and invention, and increases the sum of human 
happiness and, in its closing hours, of human 
misery, than many completed centuries. 

[1931 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

But, my classmates, the unequalled heroism 
of this year, the unparalleled sacrifices for the 
wounded and the suffering, the unselfish patriot- 
ism and courage of this war, are sure testimonies 
to the survival of all that makes life worth living. 
Om-s has been a glorious and inspiring period. 
My message to you is full of congratulation, of 
hopefulness, and, may I add, of affection. 
Very sincerely yours, 

Chauncey M. Depew. 
Miss Mary Barrows, Secretary, 
Huntington Chambers, 
Boston, Mass. 



194] 



THE LESSON OF TWO GREAT WARS. 
Written for Leslie's Weekly, June 17, 1915. 

Editor's Note. — Former Senator Depew 
was actively associated with the affairs of the 
Government during the War between the States 
and recollects vividly that great struggle. He has 
been much abroad, and from his distinguished 
acquaintance with European rulers and statesmen 
has an intimate knowledge of events that led to 
the present war and the conditions prior to its 
outbreak. Few other men are so well equipped 
to draw the parallel that he here outlines. 

A veteran observer who has Hved through 
several critical periods is impressed with the 
frequency and Hteralness with which history 
repeats itself. The cabinet crisis in Great 
Britain emphasizes this truth. Its remarkable 
analogy is found in our Civil War. At one 
period the press of the North, led by Horace 
Greeley, was in fierce revolt against the man- 
agement of the war. Generals were sacrificed 
and the favorite of the day was driven from 
command the next. The people became im- 
patient. Results were unsatisfactory and suc- 
cess and immediate success the only criterion. 
For some time battles were described as glorious 

[195] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

exhibitions of valor and patriotism. The long 
Ust of dead and wounded was the roll of honor. 
But when the war dragged on without decisive 
victories, the news of drawn fights, or defeats, 
or of retreats was received with horror as use- 
less slaughter caused by incompetent leadership. 
Utterances, which in the early part of the war 
would have been treasonable, became later the 
angry expression of the people demanding a 
sacrifice. This culminated in a peace move- 
ment which was dangerous to the Union and 
encouraged the Confederates. Three commis- 
sioners, old-time Whig statesmen, appeared at 
Niagara Falls and announced that they were 
authorized to treat for peace. It was a shrewd 
and adroit move on the part of the exceedingly 
able men who were conducting the affairs of 
the Confederacy. It distracted the attention 
of the North, which should have been concen- 
trated on the prosecution of the war, and ener- 
gized the South. Mr. Lincoln said to me he 
felt sure that the commissioners were without 
authority; but when Mr. Greeley wrote that he 
would be held personally responsible for every 
drop of blood and every dollar spent if the war 
continued, he authorized him to see them and 
ascertain their powers. Mr. Greeley so con- 
ducted and prolonged the negotiations that Mr. 
Lincoln issued his famous proclamation giving 
safe conduct to Washington and return to any 
one representing the Confederate government. 
[1961 



LESSONS OF TWO GREAT WARS 

No one came. But the newspaper crusade 
against Mr. Lincoln and the conduct of the war 
continued until General Grant's victories saved 
the situation. That part of the press which at 
the beginning of the war was insisting on the 
pohcy of ''On to Richmond" at any cost was 
the one demanding peace at any cost. 

I was in England at the time of the declaration 
of war with Germany. There was general ex- 
pectation that Mr. Haldane, who had organized 
the territorials, then the only available volun- 
teer body to aid the small standing army, would 
be the War Minister. The campaign of certain 
newspapers to drive Haldane out and put Kitch- 
ener in as the one and only man supremely 
fitted was one of the most brilliant and effective 
efforts I have ever known. Now the same 
newspapers have made an attack so fierce on 
Kitchener that, while the confidence of the 
country in him has been only partially dis- 
turbed, the government has been revolutionized 
and the opposition invited to share the manage- 
ment of the war. The same sort of attack in 
the Civil War did not destroy the confidence 
of the people in Lincoln, but Generals Pope, 
Hooker and McClellan had to go. 

There was a memorable exception to the 
popularity of Lincoln. In 1863 the peace ad- 
vocates were becoming so powerful that Mr. 
Lincoln's renomination and re-election, if nom- 
inated, were doubtful. The series of remark- 

[1971 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

able victories by General Grant during the 
summer of that year defeated the peace people, 
re-elected Lincoln and ended the war at Appo- 
mattox. But for those victories the cry "the 
war is a failure" would have swept the North. 
The Confederacy would have been recognized 
and the Union dissolved. Our Civil War and 
this frightful, savage and all-embracing Euro- 
pean conflict both bring to the front the handi- 
caps of democracy in a war with the concen- 
trated authority of autocracy. The North in 
our Civil War was a democracy divided in 
bitter partizanship and with the largest liberty 
of the press and of speech. Slavery had given 
over the government of the South to an oli- 
garchy of about 300,000 men who, in terror of 
injury to the system upon which were based 
their property and prosperity, gave absolute 
power to a few highly trained and able leaders. 
They controlled the schools and the newspapers. 
They taught the generation which went into 
rebellion both its righteousness and necessity. 
When these leaders decided to revolt, they 
could rely upon the unquestioning loyalty of 
their people. Their organization was perfect. 
Their armies were drilled, officered and com- 
manded by the skilled graduates of the Military 
Academy. A Horace Greeley in revolt or 
criticism could not live under their system, and 
there were no such independent and hostile 
critics. The result was that with infinite 
[1981 



LESSONS OF TWO GREAT WARS 

inferiority in men, resources, cash and credit 
they ahnost succeeded. The Northern de- 
mocracy, on the other hand, lost in the first 
two years of the war a fearful waste of men and 
materials from divided councils, confidence in 
untrained armies, uneducated leaders and in- 
efficiency. 

Germany began this war with the most won- 
derful mihtary organization of all the centuries, 
supported by a people trained to arms, educated 
to yield enthusiastic support to their Emperor 
and his General Staff. An army of a million 
men can draw upon a possible twelve milhons 
who are trained, their depots for report desig- 
nated, their equipment ready, their organiza- 
tion automatic and transportation provided on 
the State railways. So with these resources 
and a unanimous population, Germany is em- 
battled against almost the world in arms. 

Great Britain entered the war unprepared. 
Behind her available army of three hundred 
thousand are those who volunteer at home and 
the contingents furnished by her colonies. Her 
reliance is upon recruiting, and after her noblest, 
bravest and best to the extent of about two 
millions have enhsted, the rest hold back or to 
excuse their want of patriotism criticize the 
conduct of the war or incite labor troubles in 
the factories manufacturing munitions of war. 
She is deficient in war materials because a 
democratic government under party manage- 
[199 1 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

ment will not and dare not incur the expense of 
preparation for war, or the certainty of political 
defeat by enforcing compulsory service. 

I remember being a guest on one of the steam- 
ships in the fleet at the great naval review in the 
Solent on Queen Victoria's jubilee. The Em- 
peror of Germany and King Edward the Seventh, 
then Prince of Wales, came on the ship. After 
the reception the Emperor asked if the ship 
had anything new in the way of armament and 
was told of a quick-firing gun just invented. 
In a moment he was all over that gun and 
critically examined it. Calling his aid, he gave 
a peremptory order to equip his fleet with it. 
This illustrated the genius as well as power of 
the Emperor. Had he been King of Great 
Britain he could not and would not have dared 
give such an order. Such suggestion from 
him would have rocked his throne. 

After ten months of unparalleled slaughter 
and expenditure, not one allied soldier is yet on 
German soil except in East Prussia and Alsace- 
Lorraine, and Germany has not felt the horrors 
of war which have devastated Belgium and 
northern France. An indignant people over- 
threw the British government and forced its 
reorganization, and yet if the government had 
in the days of peace tried to prepare for this 
war, they would have been driven from office. 
All parties unite and assume the responsibilities 
of government. With domestic discord elim- 

[2001 



LESSONS OF TWO GREAT WARS 

inated and the country one, the exhaustless re- 
sources and tireless energy of democracy can 
prepare for an aggressive campaign. 

The lesson of the two wars, the present and 
our Civil War, is evident. The nature of man 
has not changed. War is not probable but 
always possible. No one wants or would have 
mihtarism estabhshed, but unpreparedness is 
criminal neglect and its punishment drastic and 
fearful. The price of hberty is great, but it is 
abundantly worth the cost. Wars are too 
infrequent to justify any check upon the spirit 
and practice of true democracy. A repubUcan 
government like ours can be a true representa- 
tive of "life, hberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness" and still be prepared to maintain and 
defend them. 



201 



HAS BRYAN STEPPED INTO OBLIVION? 
Written for "Leslie's Weekly," July 1, 1915. 

Civis Romanus sum (I am a Roman citizen). 
There is no sentence from classic literature which 
was of greater inspiration or aroused more en- 
thusiasm among students in my youth than 
this proud declaration of Roman citizenship. 
It was protection to the Roman wherever he 
might be, in any part of the known world. 
CiviUzed and barbarous people had been taught 
that behind the citizen was the whole power of 
Rome; her eagles and her legions were prompt 
to rescue or revenge. When the Apostle Paul 
was on trial before the Roman Governor, he 
might have suffered the fate of Jesus if he had 
not startled that functionary by declaring: *'I 
am a Roman citizen." The Magistrate apolo- 
gized, the prisoner was sent under compli- 
mentary escort to the Imperial City. It was a 
journey he was very anxious to make, but in his 
poverty could not have done so except at the 
expense and under the protection of the Govern- 
ment. This principle of protection of the 
citizen and his rights in foreign lands and in 
aUen jurisdictions has been recognized and 
enforced by the diplomacy, backed by the army 

[2021 



BRYAN IN OBLIVION 

and navy, of all civilized nations. The arrival 
of the British or a German cruiser is simultan- 
eous almost with the arrest, spoliation or 
robbery of one of their citizens anywhere in the 
world. Our Government has grown singularly 
lax in performing this duty. For a long time 
we paid tribute to the Algerian and Tripolitan 
pirates to keep them from seizing our merchant 
vessels and selling their crews into slavery. 
Finally the American spirit was aroused and the 
American navy sunk the fleet of the Bey of 
Tunis, and by bombardment sent his palace 
crumbling about him. This ended forever that 
sort of attack upon American citizens or their 
property and gave freedom of the seas for ships 
carrying the American flag. 

In the several crises which have brought 
Americans together as one man to assert and 
defend American rights and liberties, none 
aroused greater enthusiasm and determination 
than when Daniel Webster, as Secretary of 
State, defied the power of the Austrian Empire 
and, incidentally, all Europe, because all 
European governments claimed the same rights, 
when he used the American navy for the rescue 
and safety of a naturalized citizen. His dis- 
patch asserting the position of the United 
States, where the rights of its citizens were in- 
volved, is a document so luminous that it forms 
one of the most brilhant pages in our diplomatic 
literature. With the disappearance of our 
[203] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

merchant marine from the oceans and seas of 
the world, we have become as a nation dis- 
gracefully indifferent to the rights of American 
citizens who are lawfully resident and doing 
business in foreign countries. We differ in 
this respect radically from all highly organized 
industrial nations of the world. Increasing 
populations and congestion in manufactures 
have made the problem of earning a living very 
acute in those countries. Their production has 
been so largely in excess of the needs of their 
own markets that they have been compelled 
to find markets all around the earth. They 
must either do this or face starvation and 
revolution, or find outlets in colonization and 
colonies for the settlement of their emigration. 
Foreign commerce, which is the life of Great 
Britain and of Germany, was becoming, up to 
the breaking out of this terrible war, stimulated 
by every art of diplomacy and the whole powder 
of their navies. They have virtually kept us 
out of South America and absorbed its trade; 
they have crippled us in China and the Orient; 
they have handicapped us even in Mexico. 
Within the last ten years we have made some 
efforts to compete with these countries in 
foreign trade; we have extended fitfully but 
not as a recognized system encouragement and 
protection to our citizens who are enterprising 
and patriotic enough to go into these countries 
and carry with them our products and the needs 

[204] 



BRYAN IN OBLIVION 

for the expansion of our markets. As the 
United States increases in population it is self- 
evident that the experience of European 
countries will be repeated here unless we have 
foreign markets. Unless there are Am^erican 
citizens residing in those countries, who are 
skilled, energetic and progressive, the con- 
gestion of our industries is sure to occur. There 
will be overproduction, lowering of wages, re- 
duction of time and numbers in our plants and 
a situation which will degrade American citizen- 
ship and lower the standards of American life. 

When Mr. Bryan became Secretary of State 
and for two years and a half during which he has 
held that office, our Government has been 
singularly indifferent to the rights of American 
citizens in foreign countries and, in a way, hostile 
to their moving into other lands and establish- 
ing themselves there in business. What Uttle 
encouragement had been given to these enter- 
prising Americans by previous administrations 
was contemptuously styled ''dollar diplomacy." 
I had a friend who twenty-five years ago went 
to Mexico as the manager of an industrial 
enterprise. This was not a concession from the 
Mexican Government involving any privileges 
which any other man, Mexican or of any other 
nationahty, might not have undertaken, if 
willing to risk his money, give to it his time and 
business talent, and take the chances of com- 
petition. It was helpful to American industries 

[205] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

in the factory products which the business 
require. My friend has been fairly successful; 
Mexico has become his home and that of his 
children; all his interests of every kind have 
been built up and estabhshed there. Every 
such American is an advance agent and per- 
manent factor in the encouragement and ex- 
pansion of American trade in foreign lands. If 
there were enough of such citizens properly pro- 
tected by our Government and encouraged as 
the citizens and subjects of other governments 
are, we would have what the German Emperor 
calls "& place in the sun" where now we do not 
cause a shadow. When the revolution broke 
out in Mexico my friend received some pro- 
tection at first from the Government of Huerta, 
the only semblance of government Mexico has 
had since Madero. A bandit chief called on 
him one day and said, "My forces extend all 
over the territory occupied by your plants. We 
are here, there and everywhere; we can destroy 
your property; we are fighting Huerta and 
therefore we are allies of the United States, but 
we have to be supported. A monthly sum and 
your extended lines are safe." The simi was 
moderate because, the bandit chief said, "We 
are practically in alliance and fighting your 
battles, and so I am treating you much better 
than I am the big French mine near here, 
because under the Monroe Doctrine the United 
States will not permit France to interfere, and 

[2061 



BRYAN IN OBLIVION 

SO I am taking the whole output." Another 
bandit came who drove out this one and the 
American manager, who left his assistant, a 
Mexican, in charge. The second bandit de- 
manded five hundred dollars the first day, one 
thousand the next day, and two thousand the 
third, and this not forthcoming immediately 
escorted the manager to the cemetery, placed 
him against a tombstone and shot him. The 
American manager, my friend, went to the 
American Embassy and was told that all that 
could be done for him by the American Govern- 
ment, his own government, was to give a ticket 
home to the United States for himself and 
family. He had no home in the United States 
nor any occupation with which to support his 
family. He had been absent a quarter of a 
century. Another American, formerly an en- 
gineer in our railway service, called on me and 
said that with a German engineer he had been 
in the service of a big mining company in 
Mexico. They had each accumulated about 
fifteen thousand dollars worth of property. 
Their property was taken from them and they 
fled with their families to Mexico City. Each 
appealed for help to his Embassy. The Ameri- 
can was informed that nothing could be done 
for him except to give him transportation to the 
United States. The German Embassy re- 
covered full damages for the German. 

I do not want to do any injustice, but I have 

[207] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

been told by several who have appealed to the 
State Department, and whose cases were some- 
what similar, that they have been received 
coldly and practically informed that the place 
for an American was in his own country and 
that when he went to a foreign comitry and 
estabhshed himself there in business, he did so 
at his own risk. Unless the old Roman doctrine 
becomes the estabhshed rule of the United 
States, imless the American flag means as much 
to the American citizen who is doing business 
in foreign countries as the British or the German 
flag does to the subjects of those countries in 
foreign lands, our Pan-American and other 
Congresses and Conventions, with the repre- 
sentatives of those countries for the purpose 
of promoting trade and inter-communication, 
have no practical value, but are only interesting 
and entertaining opportunities for the rainbow 
and aurora boreahs of international oratory. 

We have had in my time two resignations of 
Secretaries of State, each of them very dramatic 
and sensational at the time. Salmon F. Chase 
was Secretary of the Treasury when he resigned 
from Lincoln's Cabinet. The position of Secre- 
tary of the Treasury was then quite the most 
important on account of our financial troubles 
in government. I was in Washington at the 
time, being there on official business connected 
with my position as Secretary of State of New 
York. I was a devoted and enthusiastic friend 

[2081 



BRYAN IN OBLIVION 

of Secretary of State Seward and so knew much 
of what was going on in the inner confidences of 
the Cabinet. There was an intense antagon- 
ism between Seward and Chase. Chase had 
been conspiring for over two years to prevent 
Lincoln's renomination and secure the nomina- 
tion for himself. For that purpose he had 
placed himself at the head of the ultra-radical 
element of the party. Mr. Lincoln knew per- 
fectly every move Chase was making and the 
hoUowness of his professions of loyalty. Not- 
withstanding this, when Chase had resigned 
before because Lincoln had refused to do as he 
had advised, Mr. Lincoln declined to accept his 
resignation and modified his poUcy, which was 
largely poUtical as to appointments, to gratify 
Chase; but when Chase, with a great flourish of 
trumpets and a spectacular appeal to the 
country, sent in his second resignation, to his 
amazement and disgust Mr. Lincoln accepted it. 
The country raUied behind Lincoln and, except 
that in his magnanimity and great-heartedness, 
Mr. Lincoln made Salmon P. Chase Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, he would have dropped out of sight. 

The second resignation was that of James G. 
Blaine from the Cabinet of President Harrison. 
I was intimate with Mr. Blaine and very fond 
of him. Though he was the head of Mr. 
Harrison's Cabinet, he permitted himself to be 
put forward in the Republican National Con- 

[2091 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

vention as a candidate against his chief. Mr. 
Blaine was at the time a very sick man. Mr. 
Harrison had asked me to be his convention and 
floor manager at MinneapoHs where the Con- 
vention met. I called upon Mr. Blaine, told 
him the President's request and said to him, 
*'My friendship with you is such that I will not 
take this place or assume this responsibility 
without your consent." He said, "You have 
my entire approval; under no circumstances will 
I be a candidate; my health is such I could not 
survive the campaign." Of course, he resigned 
before Mr. Harrison's renomination and died in 
a few months. Mr. Harrison offered me his 
place, which I felt compelled to decline. 

Now comes the resignation of Mr. Bryan. 
When one has reached my time of life and been 
active in affairs from the time he reached his 
majoritj^, precedents and historical parallels 
greatly interest him. In the Mexican war, in 
the War of Rebellion, in the Spanish war, the 
actions and sentiments of the people have always 
been the same. They rally around the Presi- 
dent. They do this without regard to party 
affiliations or approval or disapproval of his 
other policies, measures and administrative 
acts. The President represents for the time 
being the honor and integrity, the rights and 
safety of the country. The people brush aside 
with impatience and anger any effort, even from 
their greatest idol, which they think may 
[210] 



BRYAN IN OBLIVION 

embarrass him. I remember as if it were yester- 
day Horatio Seymour, one of the ablest and 
most brilUant statesmen of his period, who had 
carried the State of New York and been elected 
Governor, declared against Lincoln's emanci- 
pation proclamation and other drastic move- 
ments to prosecute the war. Governor Sey- 
mour believed the policies of Lincoln subversive 
of the Constitution, of the reserved rights of the 
States and the liberty of the individual. He 
was defeated for Governor and subsequently for 
President. The views which he advocated had 
been the doctrine taught him by a democratic 
father and which had practically governed the 
country almost since its organization. But in 
the minds of the people they were obstructions 
to what they believed to be the President's 
purpose — the preservation of the Union, or 
that all else was nothing when there w^as danger 
to union and liberty, "one and inseparable, 
now and forever." 

So now, when American ships have been tor- 
pedoed and sunk, and American men, women 
and children rightfully and lawfully on the 
ocean have been killed — the reasons given at 
length by Mr. Bryan for his resignation have 
no weight. They are carefully but regretfully 
read. Peace platitudes, side-stepping the facts, 
other possible considerations, near or remote, 
do not for a moment obscure or divert American 
opinion. It goes directly to the mark, like a 

[2111 



ON THE THEESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

bullet from the rifle of a frontiersman of the 
Revolution. 

The President has stated the American posi- 
tion and the American demand, and, impatient 
of argument or delay, the people support him. 



212 



Speech at the Celebration of the Fourth of 
July, 1915, White Sulphur Springs, W. Va. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

When the Committee called upon me this 
morning with the request that I make the 
Fourth of July address at the concert this 
evening, my first inclination was to decUne. It 
occurred to me that the summer audience, some 
on pleasure bent, and others absorbed in the 
cure would not welcome an old-fashioned Fourth 
of July speech. Then I remembered that we are 
all Americans, and that wherever on this date, in 
any part of the world, from the Arctic Circle to 
the Tropics, from the Tropics to the Antarctic 
ice, there are two Americans, one is reading 
the Declaration of Independence and the other 
making a Foiu-th of July oration. Then they 
try to sing our national anthem, "The Star 
Spangled Banner." Both can carry the tune, 
but, Uke most of us, neither knows the words. 

I remember my first acute experience and 
patriotic celebration of the Fourth of July. It 
was over seventy-five years ago. My father, 
with the recklessness which characterized par- 
ents in those days, had given me a three pound 
cannon. My knowledge of anununition and 
drilling as an artilleryman were limited to 
one idea, that the more powder you put in a 
[213] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

gun and the harder you rammed it down, the 
greater noise it would make. The day was 
ushered in as it had been since the Revolutionary 
War, by the ringing of the church bells and the 
firing of an old continental cannon from Drum 
Hill. My gun followed immediately. When 
I came to, my mother was picking powder out 
of my face, but I forgot the pain in thinking 
that I shared in the glory of those who had 
fought at Bunker Hill and Saratoga. 

My next vivid memory is of that old-fash- 
ioned, time-honored Fourth, then common in 
every village in the land, now I fear largely in 
abeyance. The procession, which included the 
local miUtary and fire companies, the Masons 
and the Odd Fellows, at the head the Grand 
Marshal and his aides on horseback, and then 
the orator of the day and the reader of the 
Declaration of Independence in an open carriage. 
The celebration in a grove. I was the orator 
and had just graduated from Yale. The reader 
of the Declaration was General James W. 
Husted, afterwards very famous in the politics 
of the State of New York. Husted was a fine 
elocutionist. He committed the Declaration to 
memory and delivered it with tremendous force 
a,nd vigor. As he rolled out Jefferson's denun- 
ciation of British tyranny an excited Irishman 
in the audience, who thought it was original 
effort, yelled in great excitement to the reader, 
^^Give 'em hell, Jimmy, give 'em hell!" 

[214] 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

We are fortunate in having our Fourth of 
July to-day within the borders of old Virginia. 
None of the colonies is richer in revolutionary 
heroes, statesmen, orators and inspiration than 
the Old Dominion. It was from here and within 
a few miles that Washington started for Cam- 
bridge to take command of the Continental 
army. It was within this territory that the 
burning words of Patrick Henry aroused not 
only the Virginia Convention, but the Conti- 
nental Congress. Every American boy in my 
time could speak that speech. I recall a few 
sentences, ''Why stand we here idle? Our 
brethren are already in the field; the next gale 
that sweeps from the North will bring to our 
ears the clashing of resounding arms. As for 
me, give me Uberty or give me death ! " Within 
this sacred soil Jefferson's studies and medita- 
tions produced that immortal document, "The 
Declaration of Independence." But there is 
another reason why Virginia is especially sug- 
gestive on the Fourth of July. Here at York- 
town the Revolutionary War ended, and the 
United States became free; and fifty years ago, 
and here also, the Civil War closed at Appo- 
mattox by the reunion of the States. It is the 
finest tribute to the quality of American 
liberty that only a half century from that 
battlefield we here of the North and South can 
calmly discuss and unitedly rejoice in that 
victory. The people of the South and the 
[215] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

North, each beheving they were right, fought 
to the death for a principle, but fortunately the 
spirit of Abraham Lincoln, the magnanimity 
of General Grant, and the nobleness of General 
Lee reunited the warring States in the same 
bonds as before, with the same equal rights, 
privileges and liberties, and only slaverj', now 
recognized to have been a curse, ehminated. 

The passions of civil wars in all times of the 
past have survived generations, but the miracle 
of reconciliation has its finest evidence in the 
fact that not by the bullet but by the ballot 
and the free choice of the American people, 
North, South, East and West, those who fought 
and lost in the Civil War are now in control of 
every branch of our Government. The Presi- 
dent of the United States is a Southern man, 
the Chief Justice of our Supreme Court was a 
Confederate soldier, the leaders of both branches 
of Congress are of the same ancestry and sym- 
pathies. What a contrast with the heritage of 
hate and revenge left by the Franco-Prussian 
war six years afterwards! There the victor 
imposed upon the vanquished spoliation of their 
fairest territory, and a burden of debt from the 
enormous amount of indemnity exacted, which 
aroused bitter feelings of revenge. Revenge 
and reprisals are now reaping their toll of blood 
and devastation in the most unparalleled and 
destructive war of all times. 

A serious question arises in view of current 

[216] 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

events and utterances: Does the spirit of 1776 
still survive with us? That it did live in all its 
original vigor and fire fifty years ago the Civil 
War is a magnificent example. We must re- 
member that both the Revolutionary and the 
Civil wars were fought for a principle. The 
grievances of the colonies against the mother 
country were not felt seriously by the people. 
The colonies largely governed themselves, but 
they revolted when the mother country pro- 
posed to tax them without their consent. Nine- 
tenths of them were English and had the tradi- 
tions of Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. 
The one had been wrung from the throne 
by their ancestors at Runnymede six hundred 
years before, and the other had enlarged the 
liberties of the great charter three hundred years 
afterwards. It was for this principle, violation 
of which might grow into oppressive proportions, 
but which then amounted to little, that our 
ancestors fought for seven long years. The men 
who went into the Revolutionary War were the 
most substantial in the country. Its leaders 
were the leaders also of the social, literary, com- 
mercial, financial and industrial elements of all 
the colonies. Washington was the richest man 
in the United States, John Hancock, whose 
broad signature is the most conspicuous among 
the signers of the Declaration, was the greatest 
merchant in the country, the Livingstons, the 
Van Cortlandts, the Schuylers, Charles Carroll 

[217] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

of CarroUton were among the largest land- 
owners. They all risked everything and 
solemnly pledged to the support of the principle 
of no taxation without representation, their 
lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. I 
confess to being disturbed at the spirit and 
temper of our times. Some of us differ widely 
from the pohcies and politics of the President 
of the United States, while others enthusi- 
astically support his policies and party prin- 
ciples. But we should all be united and stand 
as one man behind the President when the 
national honor and the safety of our citizens 
are at stake, even if they should be challenged 
by all the world. 

I have met several gatherings of gentlemen 
from all parts of the country, who are leaders 
in industrial activities and our commercial and 
financial expansions. They are of the same 
class who risked everything and began the 
Revolutionary War. But I found that their 
general expression is one of timidity, is one of 
almost active hostility to the assertion and 
maintenance by the President of our rights, if 
that may lead to war. One man, prominent in 
his neighborhood in the West and a most 
reputable citizen, who came to see me to find 
if I had any information as to the possibility of 
international trouble, frankly said that he would 
rather have our people retire from the ocean 
entirely than to have the property and possibly 

[2181 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

the lives of the whole people endangered because 
other citizens would continue to use the high 
seas for business or pleasure. But, my friends, 
it is a hundred and thirty-nine years from the 
Declaration of Independence, it is fifty years 
from the Civil War, it is only fifteen years since 
the whole Nation rallied behind McKinley in 
the Spanish-American War. Commercialism, 
luxury, alien elements in our population may 
obscure for the moment the real temper of the 
American people. But should an emergency 
arise, which God forbid, I have no doubt that 
every element of our population, of whatever 
ancestry, native or foreign born, would rally 
to the defence of the flag. 

One year ago to-day I was in Paris. I was 
invited to deliver an address on that Fourth of 
July at the tomb of Lafayette. It is an 
interesting fact, which I did not know before, 
that Lafayette, instead of being buried at his 
ancestral estate at La Grange, has his tomb 
within the walls of Paris. Connected with the 
spot is an interesting story. During the French 
Revolution many of the victims of the guillotine 
were buried in a huge pit upon a farm then some 
distance from Paris. Among them were a large 
number of the representatives of the oldest, 
most distinguished and historic families of 
France. When the Terror was over, and those 
who had been driven out of the country were 
permitted to return, and their confiscated 
[219 1 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

property was returned to them, they raised a 
large fund in memory of these martyrs the 
Revolution. They purchased this farm, built 
about this pit a high wall and set apart the 
rest of it for a convent and a garden. The fund 
yielded a large income which was devoted to 
the building of the convent, the beautifying of 
the grounds, and a service to be continued for- 
ever in the chapel of the convent by nuns who, 
relieving one another at proper intervals, 
should offer perpetual prayers for the dead. 
Lafayette desired to be buried among these 
victims. 

At the tomb of Lafayette on that beautiful 
Fourth of July morning one year ago were 
gathered, representing the French Government, 
the French Foreign Minister and Minister of 
War, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, 
the Senior Admiral of the Navy, and many 
prominent in official and literary France. 
Representing the United States, the American 
Ambassador and some hundreds of Americans. 
The speeches of the Frenchmen emphasized the 
traditional friendship between our two countries 
and the lessons of hberty which France had 
learned and incorporated in her institutions 
from the United States. The American Am- 
bassador, M}Ton T. Herrick, appropriately 
expressed the gratitude of our people for the 
assistance which the French rendered us in our 
great struggle. We, who participated, felt it a 

[2201 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

privilege to pay tribute on that spot to the 
memory of Lafayette. We felt that to him 
next to Washington was due the success of the 
Revolution. He brought to us in our darkest 
hour the help which saved: The French army 
under Rochambeau, the French navy under 
De Grasse and the French gold which enabled 
Washington to pay his soldiers, and which also 
helped our shattered credit, gave the hope and 
help which ended at Yorktown in the establish- 
ment of the Republic of the United States. 

As I rode back from that celebration through 
the streets of Paris, I thought never before had 
I been in a city so beautiful, so prosperous, so 
artistic, or among a people so happy as the 
Parisians. In less than thirty days I was 
again in Paris; the stores closed, the streets 
deserted, the young men all gone to the front, 
and the city in a state of siege. While in Paris 
I had the privilege of speaking on the same 
platform with Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, 
a Senator of France, one of its most eminent 
orators and one of its foremost public men. He 
had returned from a trip through the United 
States at the head of a delegation which had 
visited us to promote a movement for inter- 
national peace. He spoke warmly of the 
assistance and co-operation in this effort of Mr. 
Bryan. Mr. Bryan has resigned from the 
Cabinet because of the President's insistence 
upon our rights, which he thinks might lead 

[221] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

to war. He has emphasized his opinion in a 
speech at a great German meeting in New York. 
In yesterday's paper is a letter from Baron 
d'Estom'nelles de Constant to Mr. Bryan, in 
which he saj^s in substance that he has not 
changed at all his estimate of the value of peace 
which he and Mr. Bryan had preached and 
enforced upon the same platform in America. 
But when the life of France is at stake, when her 
institutions and her hberties are imperilled, 
when part of her territory is occupied by a 
hostile army which has destroyed its cities and 
villages, looted its farms and expelled its popula- 
tion, there can be no peace. The sacred duty 
of every French man and every French woman 
is to do their utmost to expel the invader and 
assure their country of a peace that will be 
permanent, with a safety that cannot be 
assailed, and that the war must go on until 
militarism as a force in government and an 
international menace is destroyed. 

While in France, on the fourteenth of July, I 
saw the review by the President of the Republic 
of the garrison of Paris. Thirty thousand of 
the finest troops in the world. The men who 
foresaw the danger which threatened France, 
succeeded by a mighty effort against the 
theorists and the peace advocates in raising the 
French army to 750,000 men, equal to the 
German army on a peace footing. The German 
army, in its invasion came within twelve miles 

[2221 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

of Paris and then was driven back to the 
position it now occupies in Northern France. 
Except for this French army, Paris would now 
be in the hands of the enemy, and if an in- 
demnity of ninety milhons of dollars was exacted 
from Brussels, a thousand millions would have 
been demanded from Paris, and the demand 
enforced with ruthless power. The French 
ports would be in the hands of the enemy and 
France helpless and bleeding at the feet of her 
foe, never to rise again. 

What is the lesson of this story to us on 
this Fourth of July? It is simamed up and 
concentrated in one word, "preparedness." 
Preparedness does not mean aggression nor 
conquest, nor seeking a quarrel, nor undue sensi- 
tiveness in international disputes; but, so long 
as human nature exists, so long as the primal 
savage can break so easily through the culture 
of two thousand years of Christianity, as it has 
in Europe, so long is a nation conmiitting a crime 
against its sovereignty, its liberties and its 
people unless it is prepared to defend its terri- 
tory and its homes. If the doctrine of peace 
at any price had prevailed at the time of the 
Revolution, there would have been no Fourth 
of July and no United States. If it had pre- 
vailed at the time of the War of 1812, the 
American flag could never have protected 
American citizens upon the ocean. If it had 
prevailed in 1861, we would now have probably 

[223] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

a Northern confederacy, a Southern confederacy, 
a Western confederacy, a Pacific Coast con- 
federacy instead of this glorious Union which 
is the last and only refuge free from danger to 
the hberties of mankind. If I understand Mr. 
Bryan's progranmae of peace, it may be illus- 
trated by a story told many years ago by that 
rare humorist, John Phoenix. He said he was 
editing a newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona. An 
angry citizen objected to an article he had 
written, knocked him down, sat astride and was 
pounding him. Then, said Phoenix, I got the 
better of the brute, holding him down by 
inserting my nose between his teeth. 

It has become a habit with some of our states- 
men and orators to depreciate the ability, and 
especially the farsightedness, of the framers of 
the Constitution. They say that competent 
as the members of that great convention may 
have been to deal with conditions in their time, 
they were wholly unable to grasp the growth 
and expansion of the country and its future 
needs. The Constitution which they gave us 
has been all sufficient for every crisis through 
which we have passed and every problem we 
have encountered in the one hundred and 
twenty-six years since it was adopted. It has 
been the breath of our national Ufe. While the 
constitutions of every country in the world have 
been altered and revolutionized many times 
during this period, the Constitution of the 
[2241 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

United States remains practically as it came 
from the fathers. It was sufficient for the 
narrow strip of settlements along the Atlantic 
coast and the thirteen original States with 
their three millions of people. It meets every 
requirement and provides for every necessity 
of forty-eight States covering the continent and 
with a population of one hundred millions. It 
has been equal to territorial expansion, to the 
formation of new commonwealths and their 
incorporation into the Federal Union, to the 
government of aUen colonies beyond the seas 
and to the perils of war and the greater perils 
of peace. ''Ah," say the iconoclasts, ''what 
did those ancient fossils know of the initiative, 
referendum, recall, working men's compensa- 
tion, old age pensions, prohibition and woman 
suffrage? " They knew nothing and if they had 
known would undoubtedly have been opposed 
to them all, but with wisdom which was almost, 
if not entirely, inspired, they gave to their 
posterity a framework of principle so broad and 
elastic that in their administration we are per- 
mitted to try and test them all. They left the 
largest liberty and limitations and restraint 
only of time for discussion and dehberation to 
succeeding generations. Let us on this Fourth 
of July renew our faith and loyalty to our 
glorious Constitution and our gratitude and 
reverence to the matchless men who gave to us 
this priceless heritage. Let us all be Americans 

[225] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

to-day, let us make each recurring Fourth of 
July a university for teaching American citizen- 
ship and loyalty to the Constitution and the 
Flag. There were no British- Americans in the 
Revolutionary War; our citizenship to-day and 
forever must know only Americans. 

Well, my friends, it is both significant and 
fortunate that this Fourth of July falls upon 
Sunday. In ordinary times it is regarded as 
unfortunate because, though the celebration 
comes on Monday, it is never the same, but 
more like a warmed over dinner. In this 
horrible war in Europe five millions of the 
flower of the manhood of those countries have 
been slain or maimed. In another six months 
there will be five millions more slaughtered or 
rendered helpless for life. From seven to ten 
million old men, women and children have been 
driven from their destroyed homes, their 
properties taken and are facing the imminent 
peril of starvation. The national debts of all 
the countries involved were at the beginning of 
the war twenty thousand millions of dollars. 
It is now forty-five thousand milUons, and if 
the war lasts a year longer it will be a hundred 
thousand millions. This means a burden of 
taxation upon a people already exhausted that 
would have been frightful in their most pros- 
perous days. It means general poverty and 
handicaps upon prosperity never experienced 
before. But while this conflagration is consum- 

[ 226 1 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

ing these nations, we, three thousand miles 
across the ocean, were never so peaceful, never 
so happy, never so secure in our homes, in our 
families and in our Uberty. Happily our Fourth 
of July, which means and expresses all that we 
have been, all that we are and all that we hope 
for, comes on the Sabbath Day. It is the day 
when we offer up our petitions at the Altar of 
God, when we express our gratitude and thank- 
fulness for His Son; it is the day when with one 
voice and one heart we can thank Him for our 
country and bless God that we are Americans. 



227 



Speech at the Dinner Given by the Pilgrim 
Society of New York to the Allies' Loan 
Envoys from Great Britain and France at 
Sherry's, September 30, 1915. 

Mr. President, Lord Chief Justice Reading, 
Monsieur Homherg, Gentlemen of the Society: 

We are very fortunate to-night. We par- 
ticipate in several rare privileges. One is to 
hear our President, Mr. Choate, at his best, 
after his long and most brilliant career. I have 
been speaking on all sorts of subjects and occa- 
sions on the same platform with Mr. Choate for 
a half a century or more. He is the only man 
who, regardless of political consequences or 
adverse criticism, has always been relied upon 
to say boldly, emphatically and clearly what 
everybody thinks but nobody dares utter. He 
never gave a more remarkable illustration of 
this faculty than in his speech to-night. The 
wild applause with which it has been received 
demonstrates that he uttered what everybody 
here believes and thinks. We have also en- 
joyed a rare treat of epigram and philosophic 
maxims of wit and humor from our friend 
Francis Patrick Murphy. The brightest dinner 
is dull without him, and the dullest a success 
with him. He neatly conveyed to us that he 

[2281 



PILGRIM SOCIETY SPEECH 

was familiar with French, by giving a transla- 
tion of the speech just made by the Chairman 
of the French delegation. The success of the 
effort was unquestioned, because none of the 
rest of us knew whether his translation was 
correct or not. 

Lord Reading's address was a marvel in 
what it revealed by concealment and suggestion. 
It was a masterpiece of that suppressed feeling 
occasioned by the most tremendous crisis of 
its history in which his country is engaged, 
which is more effective than an outburst, 
because everybody feels the force of the vol- 
cano and the wonderful power which keeps the 
cap tightly screwed on. 

We have entertained gentlemen from the 
other side, distinguished in nearly every walk 
of life, eminent diplomatists, statesmen, men 
of letters, explorers and scientists have been our 
guests, but this is the first time that we have 
been in touch with a billion of dollars. There 
is no stronger testimony to equality than the 
democracy of legs under the same table. We 
have it here to-night while we. The Pilgrims, 
enjoy that relationship with these envoys of 
the accumulated wealth of Great Britain and 
France. The English Pilgrim Society has no 
standing in Lombard Street, the New York 
Pilgrims have no credit in Wall Street, not even 
in this sky-rocketing market. 

When I first came to New York more than 
[2291 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

fifty years ago, from the country, or, to be 
accurate, from Peekskill, my guide, who was 
starting me on my career, pointed out an im- 
portant looking man to whom everybody was 
paying deference. He said: ''There is a man 
you want to know." I said, ''Is he a great 
banker or merchant?" Because I was looking 
for clients. He said, "He is neither, but he is 
close to capital." Gentlemen, by this contact, 
we have arrived at this enviable position. 

This delegation illustrates the upward pro- 
gress of lawyers. Magna Charta is the common 
foundation of both Enghsh and American 
hberty. A lawyer wrote it, but it was signed 
by the Barons, who made their marks and 
stamped their seals with the hilts of their 
swords, because they could neither read nor 
write, but they were so jealous of that lawyer 
that posterity does not know his name. When 
I first became an attorney for the New York 
Central Railroad Company, fifty years ago 
next January, the Law Department was far 
distant from the Executive, but with the in- 
numerable conflicting and obscure laws which 
have been passed by National and State Legis- 
latures against railroads, the Law Department 
is now the largest and most important in the 
service, and no railway president or manager 
dares move without a lawyer at his elbow. 

For the first time in the history of finances, 
the greatest financial transaction in history has 
[230] 



PILGRIM SOCIETY SPEECH 

for its Chairman and Chief the head of the 
English Bar, the Lord Chief Justice of Great 
Britain. 

I have been for more than a generation, 
attending banquets in Paris and London. At 
the French celebration the American sentiment 
is always one of gratitude to that gallant 
nation which came to our assistance with army, 
navy and money when, without that aid, it 
is doubtful if our independence could have been 
won. The French reciprocate by acknowledg- 
ing the principles of liberty brought back by 
Lafayette and the French army, which have 
evoluted into the Republic which is standing 
to-day and fighting to-day as one man, one 
woman and one child for the preservation of 
those liberties. In London the sentiment is 
ever and always consanguinity of blood and 
the heritage in the common law, in the common 
language and glorious literature. These senti- 
ments have been of incalculable value, because 
oft-repeated, so as never to be forgotten in 
preserving peace between Great Britain and 
the United States for over a hundred years, and 
between France and the United States for a 
hundred and thirty-seven years. But the 
previous century was one of sentiment. 

Genius, gifted with imagination, wrote great 
poems and immortal works of fiction, but our 
century is pre-eminently and disastrously prac- 
tical and materialistic. The imagination, which 

[231] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TW^O 

might elevate the race by immortal epics or 
wonderful works of fiction, is engaged in inven- 
tion, in wireless telegraphy and in wireless 
telephone by which yesterday afternoon the 
human voice pierced the enveloping air of the 
globe and carried on a conversation four 
thousand five hundred miles away. The day 
is not distant when the speeches at a Pilgrim 
Society in London and the Sister Society in 
New York will be enjoyed simultaneously on 
both sides of the Atlantic. That will be a 
marvelous triumph for peace. Then there will 
be no interval for misunderstanding and no 
excuse for disagreements. 

Now the visit of our guests and the marvelous 
success of their two weeks' campaign shows 
that, in the realm of finance, these century-old 
sentiments between the United States, Great 
Britain and France are turned into cash for the 
promotion of the prosperity, commerce and the 
financial integrity of these three great nations. 

There has been much criticism of this loan, 
mainly from people of three kinds. Those who 
do not understand it, those who do not want to 
understand it and those who have plenty of 
theory but never had any cash. These last 
are the ones who are most fearful that some- 
body will lose money. To dispose of our 
enormous and unprecedented crops, to keep in 
constant and remunerative emploj^ment our 
capital and our labor, we must have a market 

[232] 



PILGRIM SOCIETY SPEECH 

for the products of the farm and the factory or 
there follows stagnation, congestion, bankruptcy 
and unemployment. This loan solves that 
situation. Our customers get what they want, 
and we sell what we are most anxious to part 
with, at good prices. That we should both pro- 
vide the goods and also the money to buy them 
is a novel problem in finance characteristic of 
this marvelous age. It solves the difficulty 
which has faced mankind ever since leather was 
invented, and that is, how to lift oneself over a 
fence by the straps of one's boots. But the 
problem is solved by the success of that modern 
invention aeration. By magic unprecedent in 
the history of the greatest financial nations of 
the world, credit and cash become convertible, 
and the international necessity of sale and pur- 
chase proceed upon lines of unexampled magni- 
tude and profit. 

My friend, Mr. William J. Bryan, is a never- 
ending source of surprise and admiration. 
There is no subject which he does not tackle 
instantaneously and with confidence. He has 
the satisfaction of having many of his theories 
embalmed in statutes when his party has been 
in power. The success of their practical 
application is another matter. In an utterance, 
I think, at Atlanta, Ga., a few days since, he 
denounced this loan and said it ought to be 
prohibited because it would take five hundred 
milHons of dollars out of the country when we 

[233] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

sadly need that money for our own industries. 
Our friend, Mr. Bryan, followed a not unusual 
habit of dodging a fact to make a point. Why, 
this vast amount of money comes out of Wall 
Street, which he detests, and out of investors, 
whom he distrusts, and instead of going abroad 
goes into the pockets of his neighbors, the 
farmers of Nebraska, and the artisans and work- 
men of every mine, mill and factory in the 
United States! 

One of the most interesting studies, to the 
social philosopher, is the changes which occur 
in the relative positions of creditors and debtors 
as time goes on. The transition is easy both 
up and down. After the Plymouth Colony, 
some years following its landing on Plymouth 
Rock, had become a settled community, it 
found the necessity for money, principally to 
fight the Indians. The Colony sent to England 
Captain Miles Standish, the Commander of its 
military forces, to secure a loan. After much 
trouble he succeeded by pledging practically all 
there was of the then United States in borrowing 
one hundred and fifty pounds at fifty per cent, 
interest. Now London, or rather Great Britain, 
after two hundred and ninety years, comes to 
the descendants of those Colonists and borrows 
without difficulty one hundred milhon pounds 
at five per cent, interest. Of course, conditions 
have changed, but then the leading financier in 
the first instance was a military man, and 

[2341 



PILGRIM SOCIETY SPEECH 

military men are notoriously bad financiers — 
their errors being in proportion to their fame 
in arms ; but the head of this second commission 
is a lawyer, and there you are! 

When one has advanced along in the eighties 
like Brother Choate and myself, we grow found 
of reminiscences, of comparisons between the 
old and the new, and especially of anniversaries 
like birthdays and centennials. This year is 
remarkable, most remarkable, as rounding out 
and completing a hundred years of peace 
between the United States and Great Britain, 
and a hundred and thirty-seven years with 
France. There have been greater causes, many 
times, for war between the United States and 
Great Britain during this period than the one, 
or ones, which have brought on this frightful 
world conflict. The old Romans had an idea 
of peace, though they seldom practiced it. 
They built a temple to Janus, the God of Peace, 
whose doors were to be open in time of war 
and closed when peace reigned. They were 
shut but once in four hundred years. The 
doors of the temple of Janus are wide open in 
Europe, Asia, Africa, India and the Islands of 
the Sea. They are closed between America 
and the United States. 

The boundary line between the United States 
and Canada is longer than that between Ger- 
many and France or Russia and Germany or 
both combined, and yet on it has stood for a 

[2351 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

century neither a fort nor a soldier. The Great 
Lakes washing the shores of both countries, 
and which could carry the navies of the world, 
bear the fleets of conimerce, but no vessels of 
war. 

The most critical questions, full of hostile pos- 
sibilities, have been settled by diplomacy and 
arbitration. Boundary lines have been amic- 
ably agreed upon, which involved an empire 
in extent. Fisheries' rights, always a fruit- 
ful source of international difficulties, have 
been permanently adjusted, and ever-recurring 
crises on the interpretation and application of 
the Monroe Doctrine have been submitted to 
the judgment of international tribunals. Here 
is presented the most magnificent example in 
all history of the possibilities of peace between 
great nations when they are inspired by senti- 
ments of justice and humanity. 

The peace of 1815, between the United States 
and Great Britain, was made at the City of 
Ghent by Commissioners representing the two 
countries. When the treaty had been signed 
the city gave a banquet to the commissioners. 
At the conclusion of the banquet John Quincy 
Adams, afterwards President of the United 
States, rising, offered this toast: 

''May the doors of the temple of Janus, which 
have been closed this day, remain shut for a 
hundred years." 

[2361 



PILGRIM SOCIETY SPEECH 

The toast was the bubbhng sentiment of the 
evening, given at a time of almost universal 
wars, and which all cheered, but in which none 
believed. It proved, however, to be a prophecy 
rather than a sentiment. In February last the 
hundred years of the toast were completed and 
now, as between Great Britain and the United 
States, the hinges of the doors of the temple of 
Janus are so completely rusty that no power on 
earth can ever again pry them open. The two 
countries were approaching significant celebra- 
tions of this most auspicious event; a dis- 
tinguished English committee came here on 
that mission and Americans visited the Mother 
country. It was proposed to buy and dedicate 
ancient monuments and to build new ones. It 
was proposed to have civic celebrations, pro- 
cessions and fireworks. The war made all these 
plans impossible and also any celebration of 
this great event. But, I submit that higher 
and greater and more significant than memorials, 
processions and meetings is the conclusion, the 
successful and triumphant conclusion, of the 
mission of these Anglo-French commissioners 
to the United States. 

We have started the second hundred years 
of peace with a mighty memorial of inter- 
national confidence and friendship. The old 
sentiment of President Adams materializes in a 
contract rich with possibilities of international 
peace and prosperity, and the triumph of those 

[2371 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

principles of liberty for which the English 
speaking people of the world pre-eminently 
stand. The financial genius of the two countries 
has found what the philosophers, scientists and 
wizards of the middle ages longed for. The 
alchemy by which the credit of one country 
becomes the gold of the other, by which francs 
and pounds, shillings and pence, and dollars 
and cents lose their differences in value and 
stand on a parity for the preservation of that 
interchange between nations which is the surest 
foundation of peace, prosperity and liberty. 



238] 



THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING 

Address before the West Side Young Men's 
Christian Association, New York City, 
October 22, 1915. 

Mr. Chairman and Friends: 

Your Director has imposed upon me a task 
which is not easy. You are a class studying 
the art of pubUc speaking. The suggestion is 
that you may learn something from the experi- 
ence of a man who is a veteran on the platform. 

The foundation and superstructure of public 
speaking is hard work. It can be acquired. 
When Disraeli made his first speech in the 
House of Connnons, he was overwhelmed with 
contemptuous laughter. He shouted to his 
tormentors, ''You will yet hear me," and worked 
as few are wilUng to make that challenge good. 
He became in time master of the House of 
Commons and its most effective debater. 

The essentials of success are knowledge of the 
subject, lucidity in expressing your ideas and 
clear enunciation. Every man, and in these 
suffrage days many women, desire to become 
pubUc speakers. People in every walk of life 
find occasions when this talent would be most 
useful. Army and navy officers, no matter 
how great their fame, would count it more 

[ 239 1 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

gratifying than a victory if they could capture 
an audience by successful appeal. In our 
country especially the opportunities are infinite 
and the demand constant for speakers. There 
is no greater exhibition of power or of wider in- 
fluence than swaying a legislative body in the 
enactment of laws or the defeat of vicious 
measures. This same is true with audiences, 
whether the occasion be rehgious, political or 
educational. The most serious popular de- 
lusion, in regard to public speaking, is that it is 
a gift and requires little or no effort. 

A man who had been successful in his business 
walked with me from an important dinner, 
where I had made a speech. He told me that 
his great ambition was to be an after-dinner 
speaker, but while he had secured invitations, 
they were never repeated. ''So," he said, *'I 
have been following you around and to-night 
have learned your secret. You play with a 
cigar without lighting it. That calls attention. 
Afterwards you put your thumb in the pocket 
of your vest, as if you were seeking for your 
notes. That keeps the attention." I told 
him, ''Old man, you have it. Get your dry 
cigar and vest pocket." He found it did not 
work. He could not grasp that it is not 
mannerisms which make the speaker, but ideas 
and their presentation. 

There is an old Latin motto, that from 
nothing nothing comes, and this is true of an 
[240] 



THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING 

empty head. The speaker should know more 
of the subject upon which he talks than his audi- 
ence. He should have the ability, which can be 
acquired, of marshaUing what he knows so as 
to present it in logical form and with an attrac- 
tive garb. Few people think. To think is for 
them hard work. I mean by this that the 
average man and woman are absorbed in their 
life work or vocation. They give little atten- 
tion and less thought to questions outside their 
immediate lives and activities. That is the 
reason that we require teachers, preachers and 
lecturers. It is easier to grasp a subject through 
the ear than through the eye. What is learned 
through the eye requires mental exertion to 
grasp, assimilate and remember, but the 
preacher or the orator does all this work for the 
hearer, and the hearers have pictured upon their 
brains the ideas of the speaker and his reasons 
for them. 

The influence of the speaker is one of degree; 
some can command the attention of the audience 
to the end, and some can excel in emptying a 
hall. One of the best lawyers and most acute 
thinkers I ever knew was a failure before a 
popular audience. Men of far less ability were 
much more acceptable to the people. The 
reason was that he had devoted his Ufe to 
mastering the intricacies and subtleties of the 
law for the advice of his clients and to address 
the court. He could not make plain, simple, 
[2411 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

clear and attractive his views upon politics 
before a miscellaneous audience. 

Speakers may be divided into three classes: 
talkers, speakers and orators. Any man of 
fair education and ability can become a talker 
or a speaker, but an orator is endowed with a 
gift. Nobody, however endowed, can be a 
successful talker, speaker or orator except by 
apphcation, constant study and work. The 
greatest of painters are the hardest workers, 
and keep learning more and creating better 
pictures the longer they live. The most popular 
of favorites are the actors and actresses who 
interpret upon the stage and present, as living 
examples, the creations of the dramatist. The 
success of the speaker or preacher is in doing the 
same with his ideas. The leaders of the labor 
unions are all good speakers; their success is 
due to the fact that they can put into words and 
tell their mates what they all want and how to 
present it so as to have effect with employers 
and with the pubhc. The clear thinker and 
good talker, that is, the one who is most familiar 
and most the master of the subject in hand, is 
most influential at the meeting of a Board of 
Directors or Trustees, at a church gathering, at 
a town meeting, in a Board of Aldermen or in 
the Legislature. 

Daniel Webster was the ablest and most effec- 
tive orator, not only in his time, but in the whole 
period of our country's existence. A common 
[242] 



THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING 

remark of the average citizen, after leaving the 
hall, or the gallery of the Senate, or the Court 
was, "Why, Webster said just what I think." 
That man had done no thinking, but Webster 
had put the question so clearly and explained 
it so plainly that the delighted auditor humped 
himself with the idea that his head-piece was as 
good as Webster's. The result was that 
Webster converted the Senate, the Court and 
the crowd. Webster's presentation of his argu- 
ment was so simple that it conveyed the im- 
pression of no effort, and yet, though he had 
surpassing genius, no speaker ever worked 
harder. In a famous debate in the Senate, 
which had come up unexpectedly, Webster arose 
and delivered one of the greatest speeches ever 
heard in that body. When asked by an amazed 
friend how he could deliver an address so per- 
fect in every way, when it was transparently 
impromptu, Webster's answer was, "I have been 
preparing that speech for thirty years." Web- 
ster's memory and his gift of immediately calling 
into service all that he knew of the subject in 
hand enabled him to dehver speeches which 
were really thoroughly prepared, but seemed 
spontaneous. 

One who wishes to be a public speaker should 
first write out his speeches; he should try with 
short ones, conunit the speech to memory, if 
possible, and if he cannot conunit it to memory, 
read it. The spoken word, however, is much 

[2431 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

more effective. Few people are endowed with 
perfect memory. William H. Seward, whom I 
knew very well, was a great statesman and an 
effective orator. He told me that in his long 
and brilliant career he had never delivered a 
speech unless he had written it with care and 
committed it to memory, but he said the 
second reading of his speech memorized it 
perfectly. 

Roscoe Conkling, in the campaign for the 
election of General Garfield, delivered a speech 
in the Academy of Music which required four 
hours in dehvery. His Secretary told that, 
while Senator Conkling spent several weeks pre- 
paring it, he spent an equal amount of time 
committing it to memory so perfectly that no 
interruption could disturb his delivery. A 
newspaper man, who sat behind him with the 
printed slips covering ten columns of a New 
York newspaper, told me that Mr. Conkling 
never missed a sentence in the whole speech, 
and had no notes except a few memoranda on the 
cuff of his shirt sleeve. These examples of 
great orators show how hard they worked even 
in their prime and at the height of their success, 
but they had worked still harder in the early 
days before they had won fame. It is not 
given to everybody to have this verbal memory. 
If I may speak of myself, I do not possess it 
at all. My substitute for it, if the effort is a 
serious one, is to first write my speech out or 
[244 1 



THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING 

dictate it to a stenographer; then, while I 
cannot commit it, I can follow the sequence of 
my ideas and deliver the address without notes 
as if it had not been written. The ideas and 
arguments are the same, but the language and 
sentences differ. Of course, that requires prac- 
tice. 

The oldest example of oratory was Demos- 
thenes and he was the greatest orator of his 
time. He hved in the Athenian Republic, 
where laws were made and repealed, and states- 
men promoted or condemned, by the vote of the 
people. The whole voting population of Athens 
could be gathered upon the hill where stood the 
Acropolis. In the clear air of Athens the orator 
could be heard for a great distance. I tried it 
myself when I was in that city. I stood on the 
Mars Hill, on the spot which tradition assigns 
to St. Paul when he addressed the Areopagites. 
There were some Greeks working on the road 
about half a mile distant. With my Peekskill 
tenor voice I shouted at them St. Paul's sermon, 
"Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things 
ye are too superstitious." The effect was im- 
mediate, though I spoke, of course, in English. 
They seized their picks, crowbars and shovels 
and ran towards me. I made a hasty retreat. 
Probably some of them had been in America 
and understood. Anyhow I proved that De- 
mosthenes and St. Paul could be heard at great 
distance. Athens, with several hundred thou- 

[ 245] 



ON THE THEESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

sand people, had less than twenty thousand 
citizen voters in Demosthenes' time. His plat- 
form, a flat rock with a high rock as a sounding 
board behind, is still there, and he and his rivals 
had before them on the plateau the whole 
electorate. The best speaker swayed the crowd, 
had them adopt his poUcy and was made the 
leader. Demosthenes stammered so that it was 
impossible for him to speak effectively. He 
spent days, and weeks, and months on the 
seashore speaking to the waves with pebbles in 
his mouth until he overcame the defect. His 
advice to a pupil, who wanted to learn the art 
of public speaking, was "action, action, action," 
meaning work, work, work to master your 
subject so that you are perfectly familiar with 
everything that can be said in its favor, and 
every objection that can be made to it. Then 
work to acquire the habit of explaining your 
topic so that it will be as clear to the listener as 
it is to you, and then work in acquiring the 
clear enunciation which is the main secret of a 
good speaker, that is, each word of the sentence 
heard. Cicero remarked that loud-bawling 
orators were driven by their weakness to noise, 
as lame men to take a horse. This brings us to 
delivery. The most essential thing is clear 
articulation. Don't put the listener to the 
trouble of trying to hear. After one or two 
efforts he will stop trying and go out. Do not 
bawl. Noise is not speaking or oratory. 

f246l 



THE AKT OF PUBLIC SPEAKING 

The most effective speaker I ever heard was 
Wendell Phillips. He made few gestures and 
rarely raised his voice above a conversational 
tone, but his articulation was so perfect he 
could be heard everywhere, and, of course, his 
method of putting his thought was not only 
simple but most impressive and effective. He 
had the gift, without which a speaker never 
amounts to much, of transparent sincerity. 
You will not convince your audience unless you 
are saturated and almost fanatical with and in 
your faith. Many a pleasing speaker delights 
an audience with his wit, his repartee, his hits 
and sharp thrusts, but makes no converts. The 
audience believe he could talk quite as well on 
the other side. 

At one time, in London, I heard at West- 
minster Abbey Canon Farrar. He read his 
sermon. It was a classic in the purity of its 
English, the brilUancy of its thought and its sus- 
tained elevation to the end; it could take its 
place in the books among the masterpieces of 
English literature. It was a coldly intellectual 
appeal to the minds of his congregation. Such 
an address demanded a cultured audience and 
had its fit setting in Westminster Abbey. The 
next Sunday I went to the Temple and heard 
the famous preacher, Mr. Spurgeon. His 
church was crowded, a congregation of nearly 
ten thousand. The congregation were middle- 
class English tradesmen, small shopkeepers 
[247] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

and mechanics. It was an intensely earnest 
and emotional crowd. Spurgeon, simply- 
dressed and without clerical robes, stood upon a 
platform on which he could command the floor 
and the galleries. He knew his Bible by heart, 
he had absorbed its letter and spirit, he made 
you feel that the Prophets, the Apostles and 
Christ were talking to you in person. His 
audience was swayed by intense emotion, some- 
times evinced in groans or shouts. In an earlier 
generation they would have been led by him to 
the battlefield at Naseby or Marston Moor to 
fight for Puritan ideals. 

These eminent preachers were conspicuous 
examples of clear enunciation. No member of 
the congregation missed a word. I know some 
fine preachers and public speakers who would 
be much more effective if they practiced this 
habit. They apparently think that it adds 
emphasis to their utterances to drop the voice 
on the words which close a sentence. These are 
usually the kej^ words to their thought. If the 
auditors do not hear these words, they fail to 
grasp the speaker's thought, or if they strain 
to listen, they get tired and stop the effort. 
This lowering of the voice below easy hearing is a 
common fault and injures the reputation and 
usefulness of some superior thinkers, preachers 
and speakers. Another common error is to 
place the emphasis on every word. It was said 
of Webster that when speaking of the Constitu- 

[248] 



THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING 

tion or the Union, these words, when dropped, 
weighed twelve pounds. The speaker can easily 
acquire the habit of giving effect to that part 
of his sentences which clinches his thought. 

Extemporaneous speaking, or speaking with- 
out notes, requires a full knowledge and clear 
idea of what you want to say. Acquire the 
habit of expressing audibly your thought. 
Think out the line of argument you intend to 
follow and go over it many times before making 
your speech. At each repetition new ideas and 
better ways of expressing them will occur. It 
is in this way that effective illustrations or 
apt anecdotes will be suggested. A political 
speaker's first address is far different from his 
last. While he follows the same line each 
night, the speech improves in matter and 
manner with each repetition. Do not tell a 
story unless it illumines your argument. If 
to the point, a story is very effective and will 
be remembered long after your auditors have 
forgotten your speech. But too many anec- 
dotes weaken an argument. Few people can 
tell a story so as to bring out the snapper, and a 
good story badly told is an anticlimax and fatal. 

Some of the most effective speeches have been 
short ones. The debaters whom I met in my 
two terms in the New York Legislature fifty odd 
years ago, and my two terms in the United 
States Senate, were the ones who could con- 
centrate the meat of the question at issue in 

[249] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

twenty minutes or an hour. The most re- 
markable example of this is the contrast be- 
tween Edward Everett and President Lincoln 
at Gettysburg. Everett, as usual with him, 
prepared his speech with gi-eat care, had written, 
rewritten and polished it to perfection, com- 
mitted it to memory and practiced it before a 
glass. It was the perfection of art in every- 
thing which constitutes a great speech. But it 
was art. It took two hours in delivery. Mr. 
Lincoln wrote his speech on an envelope coming 
from Washington. It was a five-minute ad- 
dress, but with sublime simplicity and wonder- 
ful imagery it condensed the spirit and purpose 
for which the soldiers, buried at Gettysburg, 
had died. Everett's oration is forgotten, but 
Lincoln's speech is held as a masterpiece of 
oratory wherever the English language is spoken. 
When General Grant came to New York after 
his retirement from the presidency, he was 
invited to all the banquets of the different 
nationalities, of the patriotic societies, of the 
great trade bodies and military organizations 
and accepted many of them. Of course, he 
was the drawing card of the evening and ex- 
pected to speak. At first his efforts were brief, 
halting and painful. He told me his knees 
knocked together under the table. But with 
determination and persistence, which were his 
characteristics, he kept on trying until he could 
make a very good speech, 
f 250 ] 



THE AET OF PUBLIC SPEAKING 

Well, young gentlemen, you have here an 
excellent school with proved results. If you are 
so resolved to win that failure is an inspiration 
for greater efforts, you may hopefully expect a 
future of usefulness and of pleasure to yourselves 
and others. 



251 



Speech at the Dinner of the Yale Club, New 
York, Celebration of the Opening of the 
New Club House, November 18, 1915. 

Mr. President, Representatives of our Sister 
Universities, Mr. President of Yale and Fellow 
Alumni: 

I have been for sixty years of strenuous life 
endeavoring by the alchemy of imagination as 
an inspiration for work to turn dreams into 
realities and hopes into success. The result is 
seldom accomplished. When it is, there is a per- 
manent triumph for the individual for a cause 
or an institution. This would be a dreary world 
except for idealism, and a very stupid one ex- 
cept for idealists. I love a man whose rainbow 
ends always in a pot of gold, though he never 
draws enough from the pot to pay me what he 
borrows. 

These observations are suggested by the 
reflections which are forced upon me from my 
experience of the past and present with the 
Yale Alumni of New York. 

I was President of the first Alumni Associa- 
tion formed in this city, about forty years ago, 
and continued as such for the succeeding ten 
years. Our dreams during that period were to 
have a suite of rooms which should be all our 
[2521 



YALE CLUB SPEECH 

own; our hopes, to secure a small house in a 
neighborhood where real estate had been so 
hard hit by residential and business changes 
that comfort would come cheap. In the 
course of time the Association, after various 
removals, built the Club house in Forty-fourth 
street and merged it into the Club. Now 
to-night we are celebrating the successful com- 
pletion of the finest, the largest, the most 
finished and complete University Club House 
in the world. Dreams, hopes and the wildest 
of imaginings are all more than realized. 

I extend to the Building Conunittee, the 
Finance Committee and the Architect con- 
gratulations and gratitude from every Alumnus 
in the United States. 

Being in the directory of the New York 
Central Railroad, which corporation owned 
this land, and as a member of this Club, I was 
in touch with both ends of the negotiations so 
successfully completed for the Raihoad and the 
Glub. The success of those negotiations were 
due to Director William H. Newman, repre- 
senting the Railroad, and the Finance Com- 
mittee, representing the Club. I take my hat 
off in the presence of that Finance Conunittee. 
With little to bargain with except hopes, the 
way in which their lively imaginations con- 
vinced the hard-headed railroad negotiator that 
their hopes were reaUties was a trimnph of high 
finance, and as we examine this perfection of 

[2531 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

their hopes in cash, and its wise expenditures, 
I am reminded of an incident in the hfe of an 
old colleague of mine. 

After graduation, and being admitted to the 
Bar, he went West to seek his fortune. He 
became a successful Railway President and 
organized a large railway system. To breathe 
again the atmosphere of his youth, he returned 
after many years to the New England hamlet 
where he was born. At night he went down to 
the grocery, where the elder Statesmen every 
evening held their Parliament around the stove 
and discussed men and things. He was warmly 
greeted and the patriarch gently stroking his 
chin whiskers said, "Well, Bill, they dew say 
around here that you are gittin' a salary of 
$10,000 a year." He was getting many times 
that, but he modestly answered, "Uncle Josiah, 
that is true." "Wall, wall," says Uncle Josiah, 
"that shows what cheek and sarcumstances 
will do for a man." 

Our association held monthly meetings at 
different hotels, had papers read by distin- 
guished Professors in the college, and discus- 
sions upon them ; had the successful teams down 
to tell the stories of theh' victories, and in those 
days they were generally victories, and wound 
up with a supper praiseworthy for its frugality 
and temperance. Harvard and Princeton 
formed like associations. Yearly each of them 
had a dinner to which the others were invited, 
f 254 1 



YALE CLUB SPEECH 

I recall a memorable night with our Princeton 
brethren. At that time the venerable and dis- 
tinguished Scotchman, Mr. McCosh, was Presi- 
dent of Princeton. He was a remarkable 
man in many ways, and pecuUarly Scotch in 
his serious turn of mind. He had gained 
millions of endowment and gifts for Princeton, 
while Yale at that time did not have much and 
was receiving very little. 

Mr. Beaman, a fine lawyer, and the worthy 
son-in-law and partner of the then country's 
foremost and greatest lawyer, William M. 
Evarts, of '37, was President of the Harvard 
Alumni Association. Beaman said to me, 
"The evening is tiresome, let us relieve the 
situation. You attack President McCosh and 
I will defend him." I alluded to the success of 
Princeton's President in securing these then 
fabulous sums and intimated that he had a grip 
on the Presbyterian conscience, which made 
€very rich member of that Faith beUeve that 
the only sure gate to Heaven was remembering 
Princeton in his will. Beaman, with great 
indignation, remarkably well played, added to 
the charge by his defense. He said it was 
infamous to say that Princeton's President had 
early intimations of the threatened departure 
to the other world of a millionaire and shouted, 
"I do not beUeve that President McCosh ever 
sat by the bedside of a dying man and told him 
that salvation was certain only by a large gift 

[255] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

to Princeton." The President arose to his feet 
and shouted in broad Scotch, ''Niver, Niver!" 
*'0r/' continued Beaman, ''that he ever sat 
beside the bed of a dying woman and gave her 
the same message." And dear old Dr. McCosh, 
with greater emphasis, shouted, "Niver, niver, 
niver, niver!" 

I recall the first Yale banquet ever held in 
New York. To-night is its successor. The 
dinner was at old Delmonico's in Fourteenth 
Street. According to the program the speakers 
began with the oldest graduate present, and 
continued according to age of graduation. The 
speeches were very long and very dull. One 
eminent Divine became so unduly excited by 
applause ironically intended to make him stop, 
that his teeth dropped into his goblet. 

About two o'clock in the morning, the Presi- 
dent aimounced that the opportunity was now 
open for the younger men, and to make their 
own selection. There was a unanimous call 
for a recent graduate, with a shock of red hair, 
red whiskers and mustache and bulgiug eyes 
that nearly pushed his glasses off his nose. For 
the benefit of the elders who had bored us so 
with their long speeches, he said: ''It is too late 
to make a speech, but I will tell a story. 

"Down in Barnegat, New Jersey, where I 

live, the people believe in the tonic properties 

of apple-jack. One of our citizens, returning 

from town with his jug full, saw a thirsty neigh- 

[2561 



YALE CLUB SPEECH 

bor leaning over the gate and said, 'Here, 
friend,' handing him the jug, Hake a swig.' 
The neighbor pulled the corncob stopper, 
sampled it, and then raised the bottom higher 
and higher until the whole gallon disappeared 
down his throat. The indignant owner said, 
'You infernal hog, what did you do that for?' 
The neighbor said, 'I beg your pardon, but I 
have lost all my teeth, and so could not bite 
off the tap.' " 

The other night Harvard celebrated the 
opening of the new annex to its club house in 
Forty-fourth Street. The enthusiastic Harvard 
reporter, in describing the occasion in the 
morning newspapers, fell short of adjectives, 
and so he reported that President Emeritus 
Ehot received the greatest cheers ever heard in 
Forty-fourth Street; President Lowell received 
the greatest cheers ever heard in Forty-fourth 
Street; that Joseph H. Choate received the 
greatest cheers ever heard in Forty-fourth 
Street, and two chauffeurs, fighting in front of 
the club houses had the greatest fight ever seen 
in Forty-fourth Street. 

This Club, rearing its storied heights to the 
sky, at the terminal of two great railway sys- 
tems which extend East, West, North and 
South, all over the continent, receives its con- 
gratulations and sends its cheers along lines 
of railway and electric and wireless telegraph 
all over the world. It has graduated from 
[2571 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

Forty-fourth Street and hitched its chariot 
to the stars. 

There are two notable deUverances which 
have influenced vitally the progress, develop- 
ment and hberty of the world. One is that 
declaration in the charter framed in the cabin 
of the Mayflower for the government of the 
Pilgrim Colony, that we form a government of 
just and equal laws. The other, the charter 
framed two hundred and fourteen years after- 
wards by Yale College, to form a college to 
train students ''For public service in church and 
civil state." The Mayflower declaration has 
been the cornerstone of American liberty and 
the inspiration in liberalizing governments all 
over the world. The other declaration has 
sent into the Presidency, into the Supreme 
Court of the United States, into the Congress 
of the United States, into the Judiciary and 
Executive Offices and Legislatures of all the 
states, in the pulpit, the press, the teacher's 
chair and on the platform men from Yale who 
have gloriously demonstrated that they were 
trained by their Alma Mater for public service 
in church and civil state. 

The greatest distinction of my class of 1856, 
while in College, and its most delightful recollec- 
tion, is that for its four years it had among its 
Professors the most witty and most learned of 
men, Professor Hadley. In April of our senior 
year the news was flashed over the Campus 
[2581 



YALE CLUB SPEECH 

that a son had been born to this great teacher. 
We instantly organized a torchhght procession 
and with a band of music serenaded the arrival. 
The yell which came through the window, 
answering our cheers, convinced us that there 
had come into the world a new and mighty force 
for the country and the college. His years of 
glorious work for the public service in church 
and civil state has demonstrated that the then 
young class of '56, of sixty years ago, had sized 
up rightly President Hadley of Yale University. 



[259] 



Speech at the Annual Dinner of the Amen 
Corner, Being the Fifteenth Anniversary 
of the Society, Waldorf-Astoria, New York, 
December 3, 1915, 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

As I was one of the guests at the first dinner 
of the Amen Corner, and, with few exceptions, 
have been present at all its successors, it has 
fallen to my lot to say a word on this, its fifteenth 
anniversary, as to the origin, purposes, and spirit 
of the Amen Corner. 

The State Republican headquarters were, for 
ahnost a generation, at the old Fifth Avenue 
Hotel. On the famous sofa in the corner of the 
lobby gathered the representatives of the press, 
waiting for news as to appointments and legisla- 
tion, and impartially sizing up and analyzing 
ambitious statesmen who were looking for 
promotion or a job. Benjamin B. Odell, Jr., 
Chairman of the State Committee, and an in- 
valuable aid to the Amen Corner, in revelations 
which meant space, had just been elected 
Governor of the State of New York. The 
Brethren of the Amen Corner decided to cele- 
brate that event by a dinner. The dinner was 
in recognition and celebration of Mr. Odell's 
elevation, but a guest of honor was Senator 
Thomas C. Piatt, who hved at the hotel. He 
had been for twenty years the acknowledged 

[260] 



AMEN CORNER SPEECH 

leader of his party in the State, and in an 
unusual way the source of power and patronage. 
While such party management has been charac- 
terized as invisible government, and doubtless 
was so in many States, Senator Piatt as an 
"easy boss" took the public into his confidence. 
Once a week the leading members of the Legis- 
lature and party leaders, both State and 
National, gathered in his rooms at the Fifth 
Avenue Hotel, and there were proposed and 
discussed men and measures. 

The Brethren of the Amen Corner were prac- 
tically parties to these discussions, and through 
their newspapers revealed to the country and 
the State the policy of the party for the future. 

I am sure we all remember the almost pathetic 
pride with which the aged and feeble Senator 
laughed with his tormentors and enjoyed the 
jokes at his expense, and in the true spirit of the 
occasion, and the broad charity when others 
were flayed which characterized the man. 

We welcome here this evening Governor Odell, 
who was the inspiration of this organization. 
While many of those present on that famous 
night have joined the majority, time has so 
lightly touched our friend. Governor Odell, that 
he is just as hale, hearty and handsome as ever. 

Fifteen years count for little in the passage of 

time, but the fifteen years from nineteen 

hundred to nineteen fifteen have witnessed 

remarkable evolutions and revolutions. Mc- 

[2611 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

Kinley had bfeen re-elected, and his wonderful 
faculty for conciliation, and his talent for 
winning opponents by always soothing their 
disappointment with a promise of something 
just as good, had almost destroyed partisanship. 
Cleveland, who had retired from office four 
years before by unanimous consent as the most 
unpopular of our Presidents, was rising rapidly 
in pubhc esteem to the position in which his 
memory is now held as one of the ablest and 
most courageous of the Presidents of the United 
States. McKinley was sitting on and holding 
down the cap of a volcano, though he did not 
know it. The tremendous and unprecedented 
progress of the country, since the Civil War, in 
the development of its resources, the expansions 
of its industries, and the utilization of inven- 
tions, had produced on the one hand great 
corporations and large accumulations of wealth, 
and on the other a grave unrest and distrust, 
which were rapidly dividing the country into 
classes dangerous to the national peace. Revolu- 
tion, which was threatened, was averted by 
regulation. The people took to themselves 
power without responsibility for results to 
manage and control the forces which they 
distrusted and feared. Whatever our differ- 
ences of opinion, I think we will all agree now 
that this situation and those conditions were 
best met by a President with the qualities and 
peculiarities of Theodore Roosevelt. 
[262] 



"amen corner" speech 

The people were anxious for a change. They 
wanted that change through the Democratic 
party. They wanted every variety of de- 
mocracy, and certainly they secured it in 
Governor Dix, Governor Sulzer, Governor 
Glynn and President Wilson. 

These conditions, so hastily sketched, were 
the opportunity of the Brethren of the Amen 
Corner. The fourth power in the State, the 
Press, needed to be supplemented by an 
organization which without mahce could hold 
up the mirror in which pubhc men and measures 
could be seen as they are. If the Governor, or 
the Mayor, or the Legislator lost his temper 
because he got, with others, a horizontal view 
of himself, his fall was rapid and oblivion 
claimed him for its own. If, on the other 
hand, he laughed and reformed, there was a 
future for him. Bobby Bums sang, 

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, 
To see ourseFs as ithers see us." 

Unhappily that power has been given only in 
rare instances and to very few. Hence, the 
number of folUes which have ruined promising 
careers, and the number of able men who, from 
exaggerated vanity, have exhibited their folly. 

The Amen Comer fills this necessity. It has 
no animosities, it has no partisanship, and, 
above all, it has no illusions. It is never 
[2631 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

deceived by pretenses nor shams. It tries to 
reduce to a normal size the enlarged heads ot 
the Henry Fords in pubhc life. I have seen so 
many promising statesm^en exploded by their 
own exaggerated idea of themselves because of 
rapid rise and sudden success, that I have 
charity for Henry Ford. It is not in human 
nature for a man to suddenly grow from two 
dollars and fifty cents a day to twenty milhons 
of dollars a year without feeling and believing 
that he can put a crank anywhere into the 
mighty machinery of the world and move it as 
he will. Unless the Amen Corner reduces the 
size of his head, the world sees that the crank 
is in his own cranium. 

When I was a Junior at Yale College, sixty- 
two years ago, there appeared one of the most 
remarkable men and greatest orators of that 
time, Tom Marshall of Kentucky. Though a 
wreck, there were flashes of his genius which we 
boys, gathering around him, keenly enjoyed. 
I remember one reminiscence. He said when he 
was speaking to a great audience in Detroit, as 
he was rising to the climax, with the crowd 
enthralled, a man brought him down several 
times by shouting, "Louder! Louder!" Mar- 
shall suddenly stopped and said, "When the 
end of the world shall come and the trumpet of 
the Archangel Gabriel shall fill not only the 
earth but the suns and stars of the universe, 
and call before the Great White Throne the 
[264 1 



"amen corner" speech 

unnumbered dead of all the ages, enthralled by 
the grandeur and volume of the celestial music, 
there will be a man from Detroit shouting, 
** Louder! Louder!" 

Mr. Ford says that he has received letters 
from people of prominence on the other side 
commending his effort. I wonder if among 
these epistles there is one from the King of 
Greece. If so, it must read like this: 
''My dear Mr. Ford: 

''Peace is so important to me that I wish 
your effort every success. Sitting on the fence 
is most uncomfortable, and wabbling very 
dangerous. At present I am leaning toward 
the Allies, but do not know how long I can 
remain so, or how far I can go. Are you a 
married man? 

"Yours, 

" CONSTANTINE." 

As this fifteenth anniversary is rapidly 
passing, congratulations are in order. In matri- 
mony, the fifteenth is celebrated by crystal. 
If it passes without a break, the family crockery 
is safe and peace and happiness assured to the 
end of their days. So we see in the success of 
to-night, happily following all its predecessors, a 
long and joyous career for the Brethren of the 
Amen Corner. As always catching the spirit 
of the hour, the keynote of to-night is pre- 
eminently America. Never in our history has 
[265 1 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

it been so appropriate that we should on all 
occasions be Americans. The words of our 
national anthem, "My Country 'tis of Thee, 
Sweet Land of Liberty, of Thee I Sing," should 
be translated into action. We have no ani- 
mosities and no jealousies. We wish all nations 
and all peoples peace and prosperity, but like 
the lover for his bride, so is our affection for 
Columbia, and our hearts, our minds, our souls 
are for America first and America last. 



266] 



"Keep A-Goin.'" Interview from The New 
York Tribune, December 6, 1915. 

"keep A-GOIN' " DEPEW'S ADVICE TO THE AGED 

Keep a-goin'. 

Don't think golf will take the place of 

a Ufe work. 
The mind and body must be kept busy 

to prevent their rusting. 
It is not always a good thing to mind 

one's own business. 
Half of my friends have dug their 

graves with their teeth. 

"Keep a-goin'!" That is Chauncey M. 
Depew's advice to the aged. The veteran 
statesman, from the height of his eighty-one 
years, looked down with disapproval yesterday 
on the decision of L. M. Bowers to retire from 
the service of the Rockefeller interests because 
of his seventy years. Mr. Depew passed that 
milestone more than eleven years ago and is 
glad he kept on going. 

"Mr. Bowers is making the mistake of his 
life," he said yesterday afternoon. "I shall 
be eighty-two years old April 23 and I feel as 
well and capable as I did at seventy-two or at 
sixty-two or at fifty-two. 

[2671 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

'' Gladstone won his greatest political tri- 
umphs after he was eighty. Commodore Van- 
derbilt made more than two-thirds of his vast 
fortune between the ages of seventy and eighty. 
Joseph Choate, who is eighty-four, is more 
sought for because of the excellent speeches he 
is now making than any other man in the 
United States, and he is still sought by clients 
as the leader of the bar. President Charles W. 
Eliot of Harvard, at eighty-one, is writing 
articles for magazines and delivering lectures 
before scientific bodies and colleges which are 
recognized everywhere as the best thought on 
the subject. 

"Luther said, in explaining why he worked 
so hard until the end of his life, 'When I rest 
I rust.' That is true. The mind and heart are 
machines. They must be kept busy to prevent 
their rusting. I have known many men who 
retired from work, as they said, to enjoy life. 
As a rule, after the first year they are bored blue. 
Then they begin to think more of their health 
than anything else. They imagine they have 
all the diseases described in patent medicine 
advertisements. Then they take the patent 
medicines. And then they die. 

''To keep the mind and body active prevents 
worry from getting into the one and ill-health 
into the other. The greatest mistake any one 
can make is to stop working along the lines of 
his life's occupation, unless he can find some- 

[268] 



KEEP A-GOIN 

thing to occupy his time and mind which is 
equally interesting. Golf is a pretty poor sub- 
stitute for a life work. The peace ship, how- 
ever — well, Ford is hardly old enough to be an 
example but I suspect that he will keep him- 
self quite as busy getting millions of boys out of 
the trenches by Christmas as he was making 
automobiles in Detroit. 

"I do everything I ever did, and enjoy it 
just as much. An elderly man does not live 
by his own work alone, of course, but by a 
wholesome interest in every department of life. 
He must know who the people are who are 
keeping things going in the world. It is not 
always a good thing to mind one's own business. 

''I am busy from 10 o'clock until midnight. 
It is work that counts. Eating and sleeping 
have little to do with health and longevity 
unless one indulges too much in them. Eight 
hours' sleep is enough for most people, and as 
for food, half of my friends have dug their 
graves with their teeth." 



2691 



Preface Written to Arthur Wallace Dunn's 
Volume, " Gridiron Nights." 

"Gridiron Nights" is much more than a 
record of the wit and humor of a unique and 
happy organization of journaUsts. This his- 
torian with his facts gives the skeleton but not 
the life of the past. Humor is denied him. 
Politics and politicians are a peculiarly apt 
subject for the cartoonist, the caricaturist and 
the humorist. Presidents, Cabinet Officers, 
Senators and Representatives in Congress, and 
even high and mighty Ambassadors, have their 
brief time on the stage and disappear. But 
they are making history and the Gridiron 
catches it in the making and embalms it. 
These pages give flashlight pictures of con- 
temporary celebrities and crises which present 
a close and intimate view of the human side 
of the celebrity and the sham in the crises 
which would otherwise be lost. It is to laugh 
— but the merry jesters are never vindictive or 
mean-spirited. 



270 



PREFACE TO "GRIDIRON NIGHTS 



''Oh wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see oursel's as ithers see us. 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us, 
And fooUsh notion." 

sang the immortal poet of the people. 

The Gridiron Club holds up the mirror. The 
victim of Gridiron humor, if wise and receptive, 
may make a wry face as he laughs with his 
analyzers, but he sees his errors or folUes or 
pretences, mends his ways and does better. 
If too obtuse or egotistic to recognize him- 
self, the gates of obscurity are for him ajar. 

This record of thirty years of the Club so 
admirably prepared and presented by Mr. 
Arthur Wallace Dunn is more than a reminder 
of memorable nights at the National Capital. 
It will give pleasure to the reader and be a mine 
of information and realization of contemporary 
conditions for the student. 

Sincerely yours, 

Chauncey M. Depew. 



[271 



Speech at the Luncheon Given by the Pil- 
grim Society of New York to Sir Robert 
Borden, Prime Minister of Canada, Ritz- 
Carlton Hotel, New York City, December 
23, 1915. 

Mr. President, Sir Robert Borden, Gentlemen: 

Mr. Choate says, introducing me to pro- 
nounce the benediction and close the enter- 
tainment, that I am to be its undertaker. But 
he and I along in the eighties are doing our best 
to postpone indefinitely the services of the 
funeral director. (Laughter and Applause.) 

Though Mr. Choate's speech as chairman was 
the most warlike expression of AlHed sympathies 
yet heard, he expressed to me a fear that he had 
not made himself quite clear. (Laughter.) 
After listening to the address of Sir Robert 
Borden and our chairman, no one can have any 
doubt as to what is the expression and senti- 
ment of this meeting. In this it differs, and I 
see Judge Gary before me, from a recent famous 
banquet, which arouses the futile curiosity 
(Laughter and Applause) of the world and send 
chills down the spines of statesmen who have 
their lightning rods up. (Laughter.) 

It is a great pleasure and a rare privilege we 

[272] 



PILGRIM SOCIETY SPEECH 

enjoy to-day. We are a neutral people and 
enjoying all the blessings of peace. But we are 
enduring from day to day all the agonies of 
war. That is because our feelings are so deeply 
enlisted. We are met in the morning with news 
of battles and losses, and our evening paper 
carries us into the night with more of the hor- 
rors and the hell of war. This tension is 
reheved by a speech like that which we have 
just hstened to from the Prime Minister of 
Canada. It is an inspiring lesson for universal 
peace. While maintaining with eloquence, 
earnestness and patriotism the righteousness of 
his cause, nevertheless there is a wonderful 
meaning in his statement of the fact that 
while in the last one himdred years there have 
been six prime crises in the affairs of the United 
States and Great Britain growing out of diffi- 
culties with Canada, that every one of them 
have been settled by arbitration. Several of 
them were more provocative of strife, and in- 
volved larger and more productive territories, 
than the causes which lead to the present war 
or the whole Balkan territory. (Applause.) 
That shadow line of four thousand miles, across 
which only one step carries the citizen or the 
soldier is without a fort or a sentinel, and has 
been thus for a century. It is a monument for 
justice and Christianity in the settlement of 
international disputes. We Yankees are said to 
have as two dominant characteristics inquisi- 
I 273 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

tiveness and acquisitiveness. We admit the 
charge, but we apply neither of these faculties 
to Canada. We do not want an inch of her 
territory, and we have no inquisitiveness about 
her, because we know her so well. She has the 
same ideals as ourselves, and has crystallized 
them into law for justice, order and liberty the 
same as ourselves. We have no other feeling 
than one of friendship and interest in their 
development in New Jersey on the south, in 
Connecticut on the east and in Canada on the 
north. It is singular how universal is this 
feeling among Americans that Canada, though 
separated by jurisdiction, is really a State of 
the American Union. (Applause.) Lord Rose- 
bery, the finest orator in Great Britain, said 
once that if it had not been for the obstinacy of 
George III and the short-sightedness of Lord 
North, the United States and Canada would 
have both remained self-governing colonies of 
Great Britain, and the preponderance of popu- 
lation, wealth and power would have carried the 
Parhament House to New York and Bucking- 
ham Palace to Central Park. 

Canada is developing her vast territories so 
rapidly and so wisely that it may be that in a 
few years the ultra-fashionables of New York 
who must be seen and known in London during 
the season will transfer their pilgrimage from 
London to Ottawa to find there the coveted 
association with Crown and Coronets. 

[274] 



PILGRIM SOCIETY SPEECH 

Macaulay, in a letter often quoted, written to 
the author of the "Life of Jefferson," predicted 
that when the United States had congested 
populations and hunger frequent in the land, 
there would be no protection whatever for the 
more prosperous citizen; his house would be 
invaded and his dinner appropriated by the 
more numerous and stronger. One of the 
great safety valves against congestion of popu- 
lation with us has been the government land 
comparatively free to the settler. Race suicide 
may be a danger for the future in cities, but on 
the farm the soil still produces great crops and 
the home lots of children. When the hive 
swarms, or has swarmed in the past, the sons 
married the daughters of neighboring farmers 
and then moved West to settle upon government 
lands, and in that way they have built up the 
great commonwealths of the West, the North- 
west and the Pacific States. But government 
lands are now exhausted. Secretary Lane, in 
his eloquent report, says that there are in lands 
which can be irrigated room for fifty millions of 
people, but irrigated lands require more capital 
than the boy and his bride from the overpopu- 
lated farm possess. Canada, with the wisdom 
and foresight characteristic of great statesman- 
ship, has developed her territory by continental 
railroads and by assistance from the govern- 
ment to every enterprise and every man of 
enterprise who would develop her resources and 
[275] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

add to the possibilities of her future. She has 
not been afraid of the genius for affairs or the 
ability to do, but has placed behind it all the 
help she could give. The result is that the 
wilderness in an incredible short space of time 
has become the future garden of the British 
Empire. Now the American farmer's boy and 
his bride cross the invisible line, settle upon 
Canada's free farms and aid in the development 
of Canadian prosperity. 

An English statesman said to me, in view of 
this great immigration of hundreds of thousands, 
"I fear that they will carry with them prejudices 
against Canada and prejudicies for the locali- 
ties which they leave that may be dangerous 
to the future of the Dominion." But these 
American families in their new homes find the 
same laws protecting their property, the same 
laws safeguarding their lives, the same Uberty 
of speech and action which they had in their 
old homes. The test of their loyalty to their 
neighbors has been found in this crisis of the 
Dominion. Among the regiments which have 
rushed to arms for the protection of the ideals of 
Canada, and of the British Empire, are found 
a proportionate number of these new immigrants 
to the Dominion. (Applause.) 

About thirty years ago there was a great cele- 
bration which gathered the vast fleet of Great 
Britain in the Solent. I was a guest on a 
steamship used as a yacht where there was 
[2761 



PILGRIM SOCIETY SPEECH 

a distinguished company of Englishmen and 
Canadians, myself the only American. At the 
inevitable dinner, a toast to Canada was 
responded to by the representative of Canada, 
since dead, who embellished his speech by say- 
ing that Canada had more land, more square 
miles of territory, greater area and greater 
prospects than the United States. Then he got 
mad when I modestly responded in my turn 
that his statistics were all right but his territory 
mostly ice. (Great Laughter and Applause.) 
Canadian development of the last thirty years 
has shown that what we then thought was 
mostly ice were possible wheat fields and pros- 
pective granaries. 

Sentiment controls largely in the affairs of 
nations and the relations of different national- 
ities, but in this practical age and the immensely 
practical times of the twentieth century, ma- 
teriahsm more largely governs and rules. And 
yet sentiment is not dead when the crisis arises 
for its development into action. We who have 
French blood in our veins recall with pride and 
gratitude those early Canadian voyageurs. La 
Salle, Marquette, Hennepin and their com- 
patriots, who explored the great rivers of the 
American continent from their sources to their 
mouths and mapped out the vast territory of 
North America and indicated its possibihties 
for settlement, population and empire. No 
explorers since in the Arctic or the Tropics met 

[2771 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

dangers and overcame them with more courage, 
endurance and genius than did these early 
Canadian and French voyageurs. Three hun- 
dred years have not sapped the vitahty or 
diminished the courage of that race, for to-day, 
led by their mothers, wives and sweethearts, 
every man in France is offering up his life for 
the ideals of his country. (Great Applause.) 

We are prospering largely by the markets 
which we supply in the world from our farms 
and our factories. In normal times our foreign 
trade reaches the value of two thousand millions 
of dollars a year. These countries who thus 
trade with us and take our goods and pay to us 
their money include every nationality in Asia, 
in Europe, in Africa, in South America, Central 
America and North America. But of that two 
thousand millions of dollars of foreign trade to 
all these various countries, in all the continents 
and on the borders of the seven seas, nearly one 
hundred millions, more than half, are with 
Great Britain and Canada. 

A citizen says, "Why this sentiment for 
English-speaking peoples? " We answer, ''Lan- 
guage, traditions, literature, ideals." ''But," 
he says, "I have learned English. I am ac- 
quiring American ideals. The literature of my 
country is being translated into your language." 
"Ah! but, my friend, all of your countries put 
together only trade with us to the extent of 
one hundred millions less than that part of the 

[2781 



PILGRIM SOCIETY SPEECH 

English-speaking peoples which is included 
within the British Isles and the Canadian 
domains." 

I go down to Wall Street, not for speculation, 
but to change my investments. When I enter 
the broker's office a man comes after me whom 
everyone surrounds and they leave me until he 
goes. When I go to the bank the president 
comes from his seclusion where he weaves his 
webs and welcomes with open arms into his 
parlor this same man. The same thing happens 
when I enter the counting room of the merchant, 
and the magnate of the counting room brushes 
aside the salesman while he greets this man. I 
say, in indignation, "Who is this royalty for 
whom I am always elbowed one side and made 
to wait?" And the answer comes from all of 
them, "He is our best customer." So, my 
friends, we greet here today in the Prime 
Minister of Canada not only our best customer 
but our nearest neighbor and our devoted 
friend. (Tremendous Applause and Cheers.) 



279] 



Christmas at Yale Sixty-Odd Years Ago and 

Now. 

Written for The Yale Daily News Christmas Supplement 1915 

You ask me for a statement of the difference 
between Christmas, in my time in college, and 
the present. It is impossible to think of 
Christmas now, without being impressed with 
world conditions. Christ preached and taught 
Peace on Earth and Good Will toward Men, 
and Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. For the 
j&rst time in the Christian era those precepts 
are almost universally violated. Eight-tenths 
of the professed Christians of the world are 
killing each other and destroying each other's 
homes, families and properties. The most 
destructive, as well as the most cruel and 
savage warfare of all time, is taking toll of lives 
every day. 

We cannot help beheving, in contemplating 
these ghastly conditions and the teachings of 
the Prince of Peace, that the present war is the 
result of a violation long continued of the 
fundamental principles of Christianity. 

The coming Christmas, which will be here in 
a few days, emphasizes how each impresses so 
differently according to changed conditions 
those who participate in the celebration. In 
my time at Yale, from 1852 to 1856, the Puritan 
spirit was the dominant one. For many years 
[280] 



CHRISTMAS AT YALE 

before I entered college I sat under the preach- 
ing of a very conscientious, learned, and able 
old-school Presbyterian preacher. He improved 
the Sunday before Christmas in a sermon to 
demonstrate that making it a festival was a 
papal superstition, and that the best historical 
evidence proved that the event occurred in 
April and not in December. In my time, a 
great majority of the graduates entered the 
ministry of the Congregational, Presbyterian, 
Methodist and Baptist Churches. 

Christmas was recognized by these denomina- 
tions as a hohday in deference to general opinion, 
but rarely as a rehgious festival. I caught the 
true spirit of Puritanism in a famous evening I 
was privileged to spend at the home of ex- 
President Day, then a very old man. A dis- 
cussion arose between him and the Rev. Thomas 
K. Beecher, brother of Henry Ward Beecher, 
a very brilUant man. President Day repre- 
sented primitive Puritanism, while Mr. Beecher 
was one of the most up-to-date of clergymen. 
Against Mr. Beecher's eloquent presentation 
of the influence of great cathedrals, and splendid 
architecture in churches, and ceremonials, rich 
in everything which would please the eye and 
impress the imagination. President Day con- 
tended that the true spirit of the Bible was best 
found in a church modeled on that of the Pil- 
grim Fathers, plainly built of boards, its 
furniture benches and the pulpit, its uses pro- 

[281] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

tection from the inclemency of the weather for 
the earnest Christian souls assembled, whose 
sole object was to have as httle as possible 
between them personally and their God. 

Now I think all Christian denominations 
dismiss controversy as to the historical accuracy 
of December 25 as the date of the birth of 
Christ, and join in universal and appropriate 
celebrations of the day. 

In my time at Yale there were no telegraphs 
or telephones, and transportation faciUties very 
poor compared with the present. A consider- 
able percentage of the students were from the 
South. The result was that most of the 
students were unable to go home, and remained 
during the Christmas hoUdays in New Haven, 
so that home, now universally associated in the 
student's mind with Christmas, was not then 
closely related to the day. Then, New Year's, 
and not Christmas, was the day of interchange 
of visits, of general calling, festivities and gifts. 

All this is happily changed, an old timer will 
recall many things connected with his student 
days, which have gone out of fashion, and which 
he thinks ought to be remembered, and that 
the things which have replaced them are not 
worthy substitutes, but certainly Christmas is 
far more enjoyable for the student of today. 

From 1852 to 1856 was rapidly increasing in 
intensity the anti-slavery sentiment in the 
country. It pervaded the colleges and made 

f 282 1 



•CHRISTMAS AT YALE 

slavery the paramount subject in the great 
debating societies. The anti-slavery orators, 
among them Wendell PhilHps, the most finished 
and eloquent of his time, had the attendance of 
the whole student body when he spoke in New 
Haven. On Thanksgiving Day, when the 
minister was privileged to preach what he 
thought on secular matters, we all attended 
Central Church to hear the Rev. Dr. Bacon 
thunder mightily against slavery as the sima of 
all villainies. 

The resemblance between then and now is 
that the present war, its causes, its rightfulness, 
its wrongfulness and its probable results ab- 
sorbs the student mind to the exclusion of most 
other public questions, but unhappily there are 
no great debating societies like Linonia and 
Brothers of Unity as of old, where these ques- 
tions could be thrashed out as they were in my 
day, between those who believed slavery should' 
be abolished and those, especially from the 
South, though there were many from the North, 
who believed that the institution was sanctioned 
by the Bible, entrenched in the Constitution, 
and could not be touched except by a dissolu- 
tion of the Union. 

Fine debaters and public speakers, many of 
whom have since won national reputations in 
the pulpit, at the bar, in Congress and the 
Legislature, were trained by these debates in 
those great societies. 

[283] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

Nobody believed then that the threats of dis- 
union would materialize. Nobody believed 
that Civil War was possible. We graduated in 
'56 and the Civil War began in '61. Most of 
the men who graduated during those periods 
served in the armies; the students from the 
South with hardly an exception became Con- 
federate soldiers and a large majority of those 
from the North entered and served in the Union 
army. The majority of them were killed. I 
knew nearly all of them on both sides, and a 
more gallant, devoted, self-sacrificing, and in 
its highest sense, patriotic body of young men 
never lived. The Civil War lasted four years; 
it cost 500,000 hves; six bilhons of dollars, and 
the devastation of large sections of the country. 
It would have ended in two years, with infinitely 
less sacrifice of life and treasure, if the Govern- 
ment had been prepared to maintain its sover- 
eignty. The slave-holding element, knowing 
that they were to precipitate a war were pre- 
pared. Though in the overwhelming minority 
as to men and resources this preparedness 
enabled them to prolong the conflict until they 
were exhausted. The capture of Fort Sumter 
in the harbor of Charleston was the first argu- 
ment which convinced the Government, and 
those who believed in the perpetuation of the 
American Union, that a war was possible. 
Even this reminder succeeded in calling forth 
from the Pacificists of that day a cry that our 
[284] 



CHRISTMAS AT YALE 

erring sisters should be permitted to depart 
in peace. Had they been listened to, there 
would have been two and, probably, with the 
sloughing off of the Pacific States, three North 
American republics instead of this wonderful 
unity, the United States of America. 

One of the great difficulties after the Govern- 
ment had finally secured arms and powder and 
equipment was the lack of officers. The most 
hopeless mob in the world is a fresh regiment 
with untrained officers facing an organized 
army. This was developed at Bull Run, where 
the bravest ran because there was no one to tell 
them what to do, and where to go. If the Con- 
federates led by West Pointers had compre- 
hended the situation, they would have cap- 
tured the Capitol with the President, the 
Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and Congress. 

Without discussing the dangers of war, it is 
well to remember that those dangers are always 
present, and always will be until human nature 
in individuals and in nations is so changed by 
the spirit of Christmas, and Christmas is so 
embedded in the souls, the hearts and the minds 
of the men and women of the world, that their 
universal thought and practice will be Peace 
on Earth and Good Will towards Men and Love 
Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Wars come always 
suddenly and unexpectedly. A note from the 
Austrian Emperor to the Servian Government, 
involving apparently only Austria-Hungary and 

[285] 



fim THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

little Servia, has led to a war which is now 
raging on all the continents and seas of the 
world, and among peoples of every race and 
nationality, from the highest civilized to the 
most barbarous and savage. The one wise 
event of this Christmas at Yale is the formation 
of batteries for the training of students to be 
officers if war occurs. The training itself is an 
admirable supplement to the academic course. 
It teaches discipline, obedience, self-restraint, 
temperance and co-ordination of the mind and 
body, most useful even in peace. Preparation, 
sanely pursued, like the pohce and the fire 
departments in civil Ufe, does not provoke but 
prevents war, and promotes peace. 



286] 



Speech at the Dinner Given by the Republican 
Club of the City of New York, in Honor 
of its President, Mr. James R. Sheffield, 
January 6, 1916. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

This celebration in honor of our President, 
who has done so much for the Club, is a merited 
tribute to one of the best executives our Club 
has ever had. I speak with knowledge and 
experience, having been a president for two 
terms. I occupied the chair in the transition 
period between poverty and prosperity. When 
I was elected after the congratulations and 
festivities, a serious-minded committee said to 
me: ''You have been chosen to save the Club 
from bankruptcy." It was not a hilarious 
prospect, but the committee and I set to work 
to enlarge the membership and get the funds to 
build a home. Our trouble was the budget. 
The budget would show a deficiency which could 
not be made up by a war tax in time of peace 
or an income tax never required before. Those 
methods of democratic finance were not then 
known. Much has been written about the loss 
of influence by the orator because of the luii- 
versaUty of the press. I had convincing proof 
that this is not true. I persuaded a young 
[287] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

millionaire and large real estate owner that 
the gratification of political ambition fm^nished 
more happiness and distinction than increasing 
wealth and enlarging income. To have behind 
him a vigorous young Club like ours might push 
him upward and onward indefinitely. So he 
agreed on lots he owned on Fifth Avenue to erect 
a twelve-story clubhouse upon our plans and 
to furnish it completely and to lease it to the 
Club for twenty-one years with three renewals. 
With the rentals of the rooms and the in- 
creased membership because of this brilliant 
location we saw the future of the Club assured. 
It was submitted to a large meeting. A yoimg 
member arose and in a speech of great fervor 
and eloquence said that he could not in self- 
respect, belong to a Club which did not own its 
own home and was, in a way, the recipient of 
the bounty or generosity of a multi-milUonaire. 
The speech swept the meeting off its feet and 
the offer was rejected. The President, Louis 
Stern, whose optimism, persuasiveness and 
business ability could not be resisted, secured 
for the Club this beautiful home and launched 
it upon a career of increasing prosperity. 

We are gathered here so near the first day of 
the year that we can indulge in New Year's 
resolutions, prospects and hopes. We are the 
liveUest and most aggressive Republican Poht- 
ical Organization in this city and rival any in the 
country. Our Party is beginning with the year 

[2881 



KEPUBLICAN CLUB SPEECH 

the Presidential Campaign. In less than six 
months our candidate and principles will be 
before the people. Our first duty is for all 
Republicans to get together. Abraham Lincoln 
in a famous political address, advising all the 
opponents of the Democratic Party to act in 
harmony, said Buchanan was a minority candi- 
date and that the vote for Fremont and Filmore 
which was the vote against the Democratic 
Party represented a majority of four hundred 
thousand. History repeats itself. Mr. Wilson 
is a minority President and the combined vote 
for Taft and Roosevelt gives a majority of a 
million. The party lives and succeeds on a 
few great principles. The party is made up of 
multitudes of men who disagree on many minor 
matters, but come together to secure in legisla- 
tion things which they believe vital for the 
present and future. 

I have been attending Presidential Con- 
ventions commencing with the second nomina- 
tion of Lincoln in 1864. Everyone of them was 
noted for reciprocal enthusiasm among the 
delegates on the floor and spectators in the 
galleries, but the Convention of 1912 had 
bitterness on the floor and coldness in the crowd. 
I noted the delegations from two States sepa- 
rated only by the aisle. Across that aisle they 
were fiercely abusing each other. One said if 
Taft was nominated they would not vote for 
him, the other replied, if Roosevelt was nom- 

[289] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TT\^0 

inated they would not vote for him. This 
spirit meant defeat and everybody knew it. 
These two sides preferred Democratic success 
in the Presidency and in Congress to Repubhcan 
measures and poUcies in which they all believed 
under a rival candidate for the Presidency. 

Men die, parties hve. The Repubhcan Party 
has had great leaders with whom it has won 
great victories and in possession of the Govern- 
ment has enacted laws which have advanced 
the country in peace, prosperity and happiness. 
We have great leaders still, of whom the chief, 
Senator Root, presides here tonight. Lincoln, 
Grant, Garfield and McKinley are dead. The 
Republican Party hves and has a mission as 
important as it ever had with either of them. 
So let us highly resolve that all who beheve 
in the fundamental principles of RepubUcanism 
will rally behind the candidates and platform of 
1916. We enter this canvass with the most 
hopeful prospects. The majority of a million 
of four years ago of the American people who 
were then for Republican candidates and Re- 
publican principles still exist. It is interesting 
to inquire what promises and their fulfilment 
would induce any man who voted against Mr. 
Wilson in 1912 to vote for him for another four 
years in 1916. The Democratic Party found 
as always when they succeed Repubhcan ad- 
ministrations a surplus in the treasury and 
created a deficit. They have found it necessary 

[2901 



REPUBLICAN CLUB SPEECH 

because of their extravagance and inaptitude 
in government to impose war taxes in time of 
peace and enact an income tax because of an 
emergency created by themselves. With im- 
portations greater than ever before revenues 
decreased. This war gave us a prohibitive 
tariff. It called upon our manufacturers to 
furnish war munitions of unprecedented volume 
and value. It gave us the opportunity to enter 
the markets of neutral nations to furnish things 
required by them which had heretofore been 
supplied by the belligerants. We are living in 
and enjoying this factitious prosperity. Let 
peace come which we all fervently desire and 
the Democratic Party be still in possession of 
the Government, their theories put in practice 
even only to the extent of the present Wilson- 
Underwood Tariff will make the United States 
the dumping ground of Europe with results more 
disastrous than those which threw milUons out 
of employment and ruined other millions and 
led to the election of McKinley and the rescue 
of the people. 

There are a million or more young voters who 
will cast their ballot for a President for the first 
time in 1916. All of us can recall how seriously 
we regarded our first vote for President and how 
thoughtfully we cast it. That first vote has in 
it a large measure of imagination. The young 
voter looks with a world vision upon the 
position of his country. With this terrible war 

[2011 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

ever before him, he is intensely interested in the 
activities and position of his own government. 
He sees with horror American men, women and 
children killed upon the high seas, or in our 
own bordering State of Mexico. He is alert 
and informed as never before, to the honor and 
dignity of our government and the safety of our 
citizens. What of enthusiasm for him is there 
in the volumes of correspondence, some of which 
has been answered, some of which has been 
evaded, some of which has received a promise, 
never to do it again, with the thing done again 
in a short time and then another letter that 
this was a mistake for which the commander 
would be punished without saying how and 
then a repetition with another letter saying the 
matter would be looked into as soon as other 
and most pressing things could be laid aside. 

A hundred thousand Americans were lawfully 
in Mexico under treaties and international law. 
They were active in the development of that 
country, the promotion of American trade, 
making markets for our products and had 
invested over a thousand millions of dollars. 
The present administration said to Huerta, 
who was duly elected president under the 
Mexican constitution, and had the only sem- 
blance of government existing, "You must get 
out." The Navy was sent to the Mexican coast 
and the Army to Vera Cruz, arms and munitions 
were rushed across the border for the bandit 

[2921 



REPUBLICAN CLUB SPEECH 

chiefs to buy and President Huerta was driven 
out. Then came ''watchful waiting" with 
Villa, Carranza, Zapata and other bandit chiefs 
preying upon this unhappy people, their own 
countrymen, and upon Americans and the 
citizens or subjects of other European nations. 
The young American voter with imagination is 
also fresh from his studies of history. He has 
been thrilled with the story of the ancient 
Romans who made the phrase, "I am a Roman 
citizen," the shield and protection of every 
Roman all over the world. Every foreign 
nation knew that to take the life or seize the 
property of that Roman was to have Rome with 
her legions and her eagles crossing their borders 
for his protection. The Apostle Paul, standing 
before the Roman Governor of Judea, was about 
to be scourged and sent to prison as an ordinary- 
malefactor, but when Paul proudly told the 
Court, ''I am a Roman citizen," he had his 
choice to be discharged or sent to Rome, which 
he greatly desired, at the public expense. 

He proudly recalls that in 1848 Martin 
Koszta, a Hungarian revolutionist, who had 
taken out his first papers with the purpose of 
becoming an American citizen, was seized by 
the Austrian Consul at Smyrna and put on an 
Austrian warship, but by that threat to attack 
the Austrian, the Conmiander of the American 
warship "St. Louis" took Koszta from the 
Austrian and returned him to the United States. 
[2931 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

William L. Marcy, Secretary of State, answered 
the protest of the Austrian government sustain- 
ing the Commander of the ''St. Louis" and 
asserting that "the United States will protect 
any individual clothed with our national 
character." 

There was no war. 

Our present policy would have declared that 
this partially naturaUzed citizen had no right 
to go to Turkey, no matter what his business, 
and disavowed the patriotic action of the Com- 
mander of the ''St. Louis," because it might 
involve the United States in war, and that to 
endanger many citizens to protect one was not 
the function of the United States. 

President Harrison assumed the same risk 
when he forced Chili to make amends for the 
killing of American sailors. 

No war followed. 

Secretary Seward assumed the same risk when 
he warned the French under Louis Napoleon 
out of Mexico to maintain the Monroe Doctrine. 
The French army left, the Republic was restored 
and maintained law and order for nearly fifty 
years. 

There was no war. 

An earlier Administration gladly took the 

same risk when our fleet bombarded Tripoli and 

sent the palace of the Bey crumbling about his 

ears to rescue American citizens held in bond- 

[294 1 



REPUBLICAN CLUB SPEECH 

age. Our sailors were released, our ships freed 
from future capture. 

And there was no war. 

President Cleveland took the same risk when 
he demanded from Great Britain the arbitra- 
tion of her disputed boundary with Venezuela. 
Great Britain yielded, the boundary was 
arbitrated. 

And there was no war. ♦ 

In June, 1904, Pericaris, an American citizen, 
was seized by Raisuli, a Moroccan bandit, and 
held for ransom. Raisuli threatened to kill him 
unless the ransom was paid inomediately. Sec- 
retary of State John Hay cabled, June 22d, 
to the American Consul at Tangier this message, 
which thrilled the world, "We want Perdicaris 
alive or Raisuli dead." The next day Perdi- 
caris was released. 

And there was no war. 

But when American citizens in Mexico shout 
so that it is heard in Washington, "We are 
American citizens, we are rightfully here, we 
have been here for years and have created homes 
and accumulated property, our Uves and that of 
our families and our possessions are threatened, 
we are American citizens," the answer was from 
Washington, "Let your property go, and we'll 
give you tickets to the United States and take 
your note to pay for them with the promise to 
do so as soon as you can find employment and 
earnings somewhere in your country." The 
[295 1 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

result of this policy has been one bandit suc- 
ceeding another in Mexico — murder, rape, 
robbery, anarchy, the ruthless massacre of 
American citizens and chaos. 

When a powerful nation is right and asserts 
its rights the enemy admits its error, the pubUc 
opinion of the world applauds. 

And there is no war. 

There is the American flag, it has meant the 
Power, the Greatness, the Freedom and the 
Protection of the American citizen since the 
War of the Revolution. Its Power and its 
Prestige have increased with the years. The 
young voter beheves in that flag, and beheving 
in it, he will vote for the party of Lincoln, Grant, 
Garfield, McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft. 



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